Vermilion Flycatcher
by Mato-Gin
Summary: First times are always interesting, aren't they? First time leaving Dressrosa, first time wandering from Doffy. Law finally finds his first friend and their first pet - a Vermilion Flycatcher. The red bird becomes a symbol of their friendship, and Kidd's smile is heartwarming, all that Law becomes to ever want. But sometimes, we can never have it all. "I wish we can stay together."
1. Vermilion Flycatcher

**A/N: **I've always wanted a kid Law and Kidd. I already have a few chapters up, and I wanted to post already. Quite impatient, I am. Haha. And by the way, this story was originally published during the Sabaody Archipelago arc so the age of each character is off. Darn.

**Summary: **Just the time when Law first visits South Blue.

* * *

**~Vermilion Flycatcher~**

**Chapter One - Hey, you**

* * *

_"Doffy, I want to go see the real world. I don't like being holed up here in Dressrosa."_

_It had come abruptly as soon as the flamingo came back from one of his trips away from home in their paradise island. The exotic scent of the sea and wind mixed with the sweet aromas of foreign spices still lingered heavily in his pink coat, and the medical prodigy could distinctly smell it._

_Law gave an insinuating pout as he stared at the gigantic man. Although he was young and still had some growing to do, there was no doubt in seeing that the blonde easily towered over the common man._

_Doflamingo spread himself relaxingly into his meridian and chuckled slightly as he studied the young boy standing eagerly before him. Behind his tinted glasses, he could see through Law's calm demeanor that he more than wanted to set sail. His determined bright eyes and studious dark rims that harshly cupped his lashes betrayed him entirely._

_"Fufufufu," he let his laugh be heard. Perhaps the boy was ready to leave his little cage and see the rest of the sky for himself. It would be more fun to see him grow, and maybe get hurt in the process, so he could finally see Law's full potential rather than keep him safe here like unpolished treasure. He had been waiting for this moment for Law to finally ask after all. It was only a matter of time till the impending question finally came._

_He beckoned for the boy to come and Law willingly did so before Doflamingo forced him to. He wrapped his arms around the young boy and pulled him in closer between his lap, his large hands feeling the short strands of soft black hair._

_"We're you that lonely without me?" he teased, but it didn't get a rise out of the teen who was used to it. Instead, he buried his face deeper into Doflamingo's pink feathers. "I'll take you on my next trip then, and have Vergo prepare your things. Maybe we'll see how well we can put your medical skills into good use."_

_His laugh reverberated deep in his chest, and the boy clutched his fingers digging deeper in his coat as there was the foreshadowing of something brutal to come in Law's release into the sea. Would his first time setting out be bloody? Filled with gore? The medical prodigy had those small, exciting thoughts fill up his brain. Though he couldn't see it, he could tell that Doflamingo had lit up into a smile, like he always did, and the blonde's hand began to gently rub against the back of his head. It was a soft touch that Law didn't know what to make of, but he'd always react indifferently. Always._

_Maybe he was too young to understand the significance of such affection. Everyone had called him cold or callous, or maybe it was just because he was too inexperienced to fully appreciate such gestures._

_Appreciate? Law held in a breath that wanted to come out for actually letting that word cross his mind. Appreciate - there were some things he did, and some things that he didn't. Everything was separated into two different categories, and that included people and their little gestures. Although, that was about to change. Law was oblivious to that happening once he sailed out to sea -_

_Out to South Blue where he would be more confused than ever. Things weren't that simple, and he'd learn about remorse and the state of tormenting confliction. He'd miss the perks of ever having the feeling of appreciation._

* * *

Law wandered the field aimlessly going nowhere just to leave the luxury house that they were staying in on the island. He needed a break, and the colorful grass and open space was a refreshing contrast to the stale air of the room that he been spending hours cooped up in underground. He took a breath of the chilly spring air, the scent of pollen marking the transition of the new season. Winter's last traces were being erased in way for the height of the season of bloom. He let the breath travel and cool his veins. It touched his bones, his heart, and he let it out in neither satisfaction, contentment, or dislike; thoughts of the rather explicit events from mere hours ago occupied his tired mind.

Just like he predicted, his premonitions of blood became fulfilled. Multiple bodies were brought in the basement of the Donquixote luxury home in an island deep in South Blue where no one could hear their victim's screams. Law finally knew why the flamingo chose South Blue as his next destination. It was the best out of the four Blues that provided a good stock of supply of agonized voices, music made by the flamingo's turned toys, as the area was known for being filled with hefty criminals that no one would miss.

It had been two months since they've came to this part of the hemisphere and Law had started mutilating bodies day in and day out. Honestly, he was getting a little worn out. The little experiment was to cure Doflamingo's curiosity of just how far he could push a human just before they passed to the brink of death or before they croaked for information. Though Law would be lying if he were to say that he wasn't intrigued after slicing up a few practice bodies. To learn what substance flowed from where to where first hand, to see how organs and human tissue actually looked like in real flesh compared to the ones he saw in books, to see how long a man could stand before he died and gave up from overwhelming pain, to see how far he could cut without killing, it was all so fascinating. _Exhilarating._ His thirsty mind for knowledge was sickeningly being quenched. Not like he ever thought about cutting people up this way before though. The bit of humanity he had was repulsed at what the flamingo has been making him do. He had always thought that his medical skills could only help living things get better, to fix what had gone amiss in a functioning body, but he was naive and Doflamingo gave him new interesting ideas about that.

The image of a sinewy body with its veins hanging out from a severed leg made Law shudder. So much blood, so much of the blackened red liquid pooling at the concrete floor just to stain it, so much of the overpowering scent of iron that invaded his nose…. and so much medical knowledge he would have taken years to have learned through a book, or a surgery gone wrong, but he had acquired it all in the matter of a few months. He would have had gone through a war just to see the type of injuries he had inflicted on those men back at the basement, but the luxury of seeing it safely was all here. In the comfort of peace and the absence of any special attachments to those he had hurt, it was wealth Doflamingo gave him.

Under the shade of his white fluffy cap, Law's eyes grew darker. The differently twisted way of thinking Doflamingo had, it was affecting his views and sight of what he wanted to achieve, and it was forthcoming. There was a weight constricting Law's chest as he knew his process of thinking was developing much like Doflamingo's, but he wouldn't let that happen. No. Of course he wouldn't.

But wasn't this what he wanted? To accompany the blonde in his escapades whenever he left Law mysteriously wondering what it would be like to go with him?

Law let out another breath as he hiked up a hill to where more of the trees grew. He unconsciously rubbed his right arm that Doflamingo had almost broken when he refused to use his fruit ability to cut a woman up. Men, he could handle, but women and children were something new. It didn't hurt as much anymore, but he could still feel the tingle of his flesh constricting, his muscles failing to do anything.

His black boot let loose some dirt as he made it up the upslope, and he let his eyes take in the open space of nature. There was no clear trail for him to follow as he had strayed from the main path hours ago, and he continued on deeper into the forest in no clear direction but forward as he tried to get his head clear. He walked in silence, and the only sounds were the quiet leaves rustling in their lush green that grew thickly atop the trees' branches. The sun's bright yellow light that coated every inch of the very ground he walked on seemed to match his mellow walk, and he was able to peacefully make it through the other side of the forest without a single disturbance. But as he got closer to the sea, the smell of salt infiltrating his senses, he heard a high pitched chirping of a bird crying for help.

Law stopped in his tracks turning his head and followed the cries through a thick wall of bushes. He pushed the itchy shrubbery aside cutting through, and found not a lone bird, but a red headed kid sitting on the grass fiddling with the victimized baby chick. Law shifted his eyes and spotted a broken nest by the roots of a nearby tree.

"Son of a-!" the kid hissed snapping his hand back. "How do you even have a strong enough beak to bite me?"

He growled at the nestling cradled at the palm of his left hand making faces and sucked on his cut finger.

Law deafened his footsteps as he stepped out from the bush and quietly crept closer to take a better look taking careful precaution for the redhead to not notice him. Despite the boy's anger, he still held the baby bird gently and resumed to trying to wrap a bandage around the nestling's body. The bird pulled its head up and started to chirp vehemently at its wound being touched and fluffed its premature red feathers. Law craned his neck behind the redhead inspecting the bird's damage, and a blotch of crimson bled through the small roll of white bandage that the kid was using. With unskilled hands, the boy went around the bird trapping one wing under the white roll, and Law's lips pulled down to a frown.

"You shouldn't wrap it like that," he blurted out not impressed with the kid's bandaging skills.

The boy widened his eyes and jumped. He drew away from Law's breath against his ear and scrambled a few feet away to face him, bird encased protectively in the shell of both of his hands.

"Who the hell are _you_?!" he dogged Law up and down barring his teeth. His body tensed in gaurd, eyes showing a twinkle of scarlet in his golden red eyes as the boy's anger rose from being sneaked up on.

Law looked at him nonplussed as he acted without thinking, but retrieved himself quickly.

"I was just strolling by, and I heard a bird crying. I wanted to come by and help," he explained.

The boy glared at him warily, but his shoulders relaxed down and he opened up his cupped hands encasing the baby bird.

"Here," Law held out his hand. "You're suffocating it. Birds have fragile bones because they're hollow and you're squishing it."

The boy looked at him quizzically not knowing what he was talking about and looked back down at the nestling, its one free wing flapping in pain while its pair was held down. He hesitated to move towards Law, and Law took it upon himself to be the one to come over and crouch down to the ground and gently take the nestling from the boy's hands. Lightly, he began to undo the wrap he made around the baby chick and freed its crippled wing. He redid the bandages expertly around the bird's body to stop the bleeding and inspected around for any other injuries. The wing that was trapped under the bandages turned out to be broken, and it had a few other scratches here and there that needed to be disinfected.

All the while he was doing this, the redheaded boy stared at him awed by how fast and neatly he had tied the bandages.

"How did you do that?" he asked mystified.

"What?" Law cocked a brow.

"Wrap the bandage so neatly," he lifted his golden red eyes up at Law, as if his flaming red hair wasn't an interesting color enough. "Whenever Killer does that for me, it always comes falling off."

"Killer?" Law repeated the unusual name.

"Some guy I know," the boy clarified, a hint of brotherly sentiment laced in his answer.

Law studied the boy over and noticed a few scars scattered across his body, a particularly noticeable one marring his left shoulder that most likely came from getting scratched by a branch. A few bandaids covered other parts of his exposed skin as his arms were bare from a loose white tank top, his legs uncovered by his shorts save for a white roll of bandage tied around his right calf. And just as the boy said, the bandage was improperly tied so it was sagging.

"What happened here?" Law placed the nestling on his lap and reached over to pull the wrap tighter. He undid the horribly made knot and set to re-wrapping the damaged leg. "Your friend?"

"No, I did that one." The kid didn't know whether to let Law touch him, a stranger he just met, but Law wouldn't let him say a single form of protest as he went ahead and firmly remade the knot on the bandage without permission. "I fell from the tree when I was saving that baby bird. There was another jerk bird that wouldn't leave it alone so I climbed up there to make it go away and punched it. Stupid bird." The kid muttered. "If I ever see it again, I'll have it for dinner."

Law let out a noncommittal hum thinking that was a stupid thing to do.

"You should've left it alone," he looked up and saw a trail of blood across the boy's cheek and took out a handkerchief to wipe it away.

The kid winced. "How could I?! Then that shit bird would've eaten the baby bird alive!"

"Let nature have its way. Better dead than living the rest of its life a cripple. Its left wing is broken, and it might not heal properly since the bones are still setting in. If it won't be able to fly, it'll fall prey to other animals unable to flee or protect itself, and starve a slow agonizing death in the process as it won't be able to hunt. It would've been better to die now rather than to shamefully die later."

"The hell would you say that?!" the boy swatted his hand away clearly offended. "And what do you know?! It can still heal! I'll just take care of it!"

The dark haired teen sighed at the kid's profanity. The boy looked younger than him too, but he was able to spit out four letter curse words like it was a normal thing.

"I've studied a bird's anatomy before. I know how their bodies work," his flow of words sounded pessimistic, partly due to the torture he had to witness just a few hours ago. Though he knew the chances of the nestling perfectly recovering, Law didn't want to admonish the type of foolish behavior the kid was sporting in playing hero. There are no real heroes in real life.

A defiant frown framed the redhead's face and he leaned over to grab the nestling from his lap, but Law was quick enough to scoop the baby bird away from his grasp.

"I don't care if you're a bird scientist or whatever, just give me back my bird!" he yelled.

Law looked back at him without expression, a contrast to the boy's expressive face, as he slipped out a monotone, "No."

"The hell?! You're just going to leave it out to die!"

Law remained still refusing to give it back and the redhead dove in after him. He merely rolled to the side to avoid the tackle and the boy's chin met the floor. He slid across the dirt eating a few blades of grass as the older teen ignored his loud fall.

"I never said that I'd let it die," Law got up and patted the dirt away from his pants. "I just said it might grow up to be a cripple. Like I told you, I've studied the anatomy of birds before. I'd know how to take care of it better than you."

The redhead pushed himself up from the grass spitting out the green leaves and looked to him confused. "Huh? But you said-"

"It's wing is bent and I need to fix that. I probably need to take him home," Law interrupted him and squatted down to where the boy still lay. "The nest is already broken," he motioned to the fallen mess of twigs beside the tree they were under, "and even if its parents do come, they'll probably abandon it and let it die. There's no use in letting a crippled nestling live so we have to take care of its wing first before we leave it here by itself."

The kid took a moment to blink as Law just did a total one eighty on him. First, he was telling him to let the bird die, then he was telling him that he'd take care of it? What did he really want to do?

"What? Are you a doctor or something?" he glared up at Law.

The answer to that question came out easily. "Something like that. I'm studying to be one."

Law held out his handkerchief again and wiped the dirt on the smaller boy's face.

"You can keep this," he told him and handed the boy the cloth after all the dirt was gone.

The kid took it hesitantly in his hands as he still didn't know what to say. Law noticed the still bleeding finger that the nestling pecked at as the redhead curled his fingers into the cloth, and he took the boy's hand into his own. He didn't know how the bird was able to do it, but a healthy stream of red ran down the boy's fingers and Law put the finger into his mouth.

"H-hey! What the hell are you doing?!" the boy shouted getting flustered.

A heat built up across the younger's cheeks as Law swirled his tongue around the cut and spat out the blood mixed saliva.

"I don't have anything to clean it with so spit will have to do," he said with a straight face. "Even a small cut like this can be infected."

The boy looked as if he'd just violated him, the heat too noticeable against his pale skin. Law took out a band aid from his pocket and wrapped it around the cut of his finger. Lucky for the boy that he was actually caring one. The redhead pulled his hand back once he was done and rubbed against the adhesive.

"Thanks," he muttered.

Law was about to wave him off when someone shouted as soon as he opened his mouth. Both boys' heads jerked to the call as they heard a person yelling not too far off.

"Kid! Hey, Kid! Where are you?!"

It was timbre of a deep voice, but not old enough to be an adult. It was a voice mature enough to be around Law's age, but definitely somewhere around his teens. Another voice of around the same pitch joined the first calling "kid," and the red headed boy jerked and jumped up to his feet.

"Shit. I forgot," he muttered. The rest of his sentence was lost under his breath. Something about meeting up with someone and going to the main square of the city.

Law looked up at the boy curiously and asked, "Friends of yours?"

"Yeah," his eyes went to Law then back to the direction of voices as they called out again. "I gotta go," he shoved Law's handkerchief in his pockets and shifted up the goggles on his forehead ready to leave, but he hesitated. He looked back at Law frowning. "You'll take care of the bird, right?" He was unsure whether to trust Law or not, but there was hoping.

Law gave him a nod and the boy smirked.

"My name's Kid by the way," he smiled. "Eustass Kid."

"Trafalgar Law," Law said likewise.

"'I'll definitely see you back here then, Trafalgar?"

The dark haired teen gave another nod. Kid gave a grin for his goodbye and went off running into the bushes.

Law watched him go and stayed in his spot long enough to hear Kid yell back to the group that was calling for him.

"I'm right here!" the boy shouted.

There were murmurings that he couldn't quite make out, and the voices slowly got farther and farther. When rustling of footsteps and the echoes of their voices completely disappeared, the dark haired teen got up, nestling in hand and chirping softly, and Law went on his silent way back to the direction he came to the opposite way of the shore.

On his way back, his trek to Doflamingo's mansion somehow seemed too short, the distance from the forest and down the hill too quick. He didn't want to go back yet, but the sun was starting to set, and he knew that if he stayed out too long, Vergo would come looking for him. He gritted his teeth thinking about the abusive man. He should really ease up. It wasn't as if he was running away or anything, the sadistic brute. If only he could get through the man's haki and cut him up, and Law was seriously looking forward to the day when he would be able to, then he'd return the beatings ten times over. And speaking of Vergo…

Law could make out the muscular man's form standing by the entrance as he neared their luxury home. He could be easily identified by his white trench coat, and he was standing stiffly waiting for Law to come back. The dark haired teen grimaced and stuffed his hands in his hoodie pocket trying to hide the baby chick.

"Law," the man said his name as he turned to face him. Vergo was clearly glaring at him beneath those darkened shades. "You're lucky you came back at this time. One more minute, and I would have gone out to look for you."

And by "look," he meant forcibly drag back Law kicking and screaming by his hair. By how many times the man did it, Law figured that Vergo actually liked it that way. The teen gave a crooked smile to purposely piss the man off and walked past him to the door. He wouldn't be doing that today. Law would've added to say something smart back at the muscular man, but he wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible to get the baby bird into his room.

Luckily, he was able to evade anyone else in the hallways and headed straight to the second floor.

* * *

What was he going to do with the baby bird? Law looked down at the sleeping nestling that he had put in a box stuffed with grass and twigs he managed to garner from outside. He had put a brace to straighten its broken wing and rubbed a salve against its open cuts. It should heal in a few weeks, but how was he going to hide it for that long? Especially from Doflamingo or the cleaning maids that came into his room. And sure, it was quiet now because it was sleeping, but how about when it starts chirping once it wakes up? And what to feed it….

Law lowered his eyes as he sat on his bed staring at the box in front of him. He was beginning to realize just how much of a trouble it was to take care of the little bird, and questioned why he even said that he'd take care of it. Maybe he'll just go back to that spot in the forest again tomorrow so he could give it to that red headed kid. He definitely couldn't take care of it for long.

A slight shiver shook the nestling's feathers, and Law pushed a few more grass around it to keep it warm. Based on the color of its red and grey feathers, Law had deduced that it was a Vermilion Flycatcher, a bird distinct from the South. The shade of red reminded him a lot of the color of Kid's hair, and Law got up to hide the box in his closet. It was nice to see another kid around his age. He hadn't seen one in quite a while. It felt like ages ago, and he began to wonder when was the last time he had.

* * *

It had been a few days since he had kept the bird, and its wing was healing up nicely. It had gone from crying in its chirp to happily singing as it became healthy enough to walk around in Law's room and jump around. It would occasionally flap its wings to stimulate flight even though it couldn't yet, but he knew that it would be able to some day. The way the bird was moving, it was heading to a fast recovery.

Law smiled cupping the nestling in his hands as he picked it up from the box, and it tilted its head blinking as it stared at him. He wanted to show Kid how good the bird's injuries were healing, how good its progress was going in just a short amount of time, and hiked to the spot where they met in the forest almost everyday hoping to see him. He wanted to see the boy's smiling face once he saw the healthy bird. It would be able to fly, he wanted to say. To his disappointment though, the boy was never there and it irritated him on the way back home.

The bird flapped its wings noticing Law's mood and the teen drew up a smile again. He always did have a weakness for fluffy things.

A thump of footsteps sounded down Law's hallway, and he quickly placed the nestling back in its box and stuffed it back in his closet again. When the door opened, Law was calmly on his bed reading a book about diseases as if he wasn't just holding a baby bird. Nothing was amiss.

"He wants to see you," Vergo came in going straight to business.

Law closed his book setting it aside and looked up. Through the surface, he looked bored, but underneath his heart was beating scared that he was going to get caught if he hadn't heard the footsteps in time. He better pay close attention next time to save him from another close call. He languidly hopped out of bed and followed Vergo outside to where Doflamingo was waiting for him out in the driveway in front of a black car.

"There you are," the blonde smiled his signature smile. "How about we go shopping? I haven't taken you out in a while, hmn?"

The car door was already open for Law to get in, the question just for manners to make Law feel better when he actually didn't have a choice. The boy nodded and got in, Doflamingo following after. The blonde stretched his arms behind Law's head once they were seated, his body taking up a whole row of one side of the long car due to his tall lanky body.

Law didn't talk much in the car ride as they headed to the markets of the city, and neither did he make much conversation when they walked around the the booths and stands. He walked behind Doflamingo silently following him and noticing all the exotic merchandise hanging at the mini-stores. Nothing in particular caught his eye until he saw a stand filled with jars of small beetles. He immediately thought of the Flycatcher back home and got the urge to buy one. Law had been feeding the baby bird some insects he caught around the vicinity of Doflamingo's estate, but it was weird to be always bringing bugs home. If he asked to buy a jar of beetles though, it would arise even more suspicion of why he would want to take a bottle of insects home. After a second, Law noticed that he had stopped walking and snapped out of his reverie. He quickly hurried to catch up to Doflamingo and forgot about the jar of beetles.

* * *

It had been a week now, exactly seven days since he had taken home the baby bird, and Doflamingo had started to notice Law going out for morning walks.

"I need to exercise," was his lame excuse to go up to the knoll where he met Eustass Kid.

Law was getting antsy that Kid kept being a no show and even brought the baby bird with him in his pockets just in case the boy would show up. A smirk played on the blonde's face as he stared at Law, something churning in his dark mind as the boy waited for permission to leave. Before he could go though, the man wrapped a yellow scarf with black spots covering the ends around his neck to protect him from the winter-spring chill.

"Don't catch a cold," Doflamingo smiled. "I don't want you getting sick. But if you do, then maybe you won't leave so much. Fufufu. Maybe I should chain you up so I don't have to worry."

Doflamingo was telling him that he didn't like his continuous disappearance every morning. It was a warning. His long fingers felt like ice against Law's neck as he fixed the scarf on the teen. He was seriously contemplating about getting some sea stone handcuffs, and Law knew that. Whatever the flamingo said he'd do, he'd do. Before their conversation got any further, Law nodded saying that he'd be back soon and left the living room. He passed by Vergo in the hallway who only gave him a stalking look as they crossed each other, and he tried to act calm and ignore him.

He walked briskly out the mansion and into the trail that led to the forest and merged into the invisible forest path that he'd been taking faster than he usually did. He didn't know why he was acting so hastily, but he felt the need to get away from the house; he just needed to. He walked with hands in his pockets and was so concentrated in getting to that one tree in the forest near the sea shore that he almost forgot that the nestling was still in his pockets. He only remembered when he finally got to his destination.

"There you are! I've been waiting for you!"

Law looked up to see Kid finally present and watched him as he jumped down from the tree where the bird had originally fallen. He couldn't tell if the boy's leg was healed as he wore a pair of black pants this time, but he seemed to land fine on his feet.

"Where'd you been? I even had enough time to built back the nest," the boy shook his head to free his hair from leaves. The dark haired teen lifted his head up above to where the boy had fallen from and could see a rebuilt cradle of meshed twigs and grass sitting upon a high branch.

"I should ask you the same thing," Law huffed. "I've been coming here everyday in the morning for the past week, but you were never here."

"Well, I've been coming here every night but you were never here," the kid shot back.

Both of them looked at each other as they realized they never agreed on a set time when they'd meet. Law shook his head and took out the baby bird from his pocket finally letting it breathe and to show Eustass.

"Hey! It finally got better," he smiled seeing the bird he saved for the first time again.

He let the redhead hold the Flycatcher as he transferred the nestling to his hands, and Law smiled watching Kid grin. And Law was right. As the younger teen held the baby bird close to his face, he could see that they shared the same shade of red on the bird's feathers and Kid's hair. The boy noticed the brace the bird had on its left wing, and he held to inspect it gently.

"How long till we can remove this?" he asked.

"Probably about another week. After that, it'll be fine," Law answered.

"So you'll be keeping it for several more days?"

The older teen raised his brows at that.

"Actually, I was hoping you'd be able to take care of it now. I fulfilled my part of repairing its wing, so it's your turn. I've already kept it for an extended amount of days."

Kid looked hesitantly at the creature in his hands, and Law didn't like the look of it. He better not say he couldn't. Law couldn't keep hiding from Vergo who kept barging into his room at any given moment.

"I can't," he turned to Law.

"And why not?"

"Because," the bird hopped on Kid's hands and climbed its way up to his shoulder. "Where I live, if anyone sees that I've brought some type of animal home, we'd roast it for dinner."

The dark haired teen raised both brows at that. The threat he heard Kid make about making the bird who attacked the nestling for dinner was actually real. The redhead looked at the older boy sullenly, and pretty soon, both the bird and Kid were looking at Law for his decision.

He heaved out a sigh giving in. The red duo gaze was definitely formidable.

"Fine," Law caved.

Kid lit up in a smile. "Thanks," he grinned. "Because I actually have a present for you,"

The redhead gave the little bird back and grabbed a drawstring bag that had been lying beside the trunk of the tree he had jumped from. He shoved his hand inside and drew up a small bag filled with worms. The older boy curled his lips in disgust.

"That looks gross," Law moved not wanting to take it, though he already figured out that the present wasn't for him, but for the nestling.

"It's food," Kid extended his arm moving the bag of slimming invertebrates closer to Law's face. "I dug for them all day yesterday for you."

Yes, it was all for him. Like Law really wanted a whole bag of slithering worms to keep.

Kid noticed the unpleasantness in his face as he took the bag from him.

"Thanks," the teen mumbled. At least he wouldn't have to go digging for food anytime soon. He didn't want to put the bag in his pockets so he sat down on the ground beneath the tree and set the worms aside next to a root.

Kid followed suit and sat next to him giving a yawn. He stretched his arms and arched his back unconsciously providing a show so Law was able to grow aware of the amount of dirt on his clothes.

"Did you sleep here?" he asked. It was either that or the kid had decided to roll in the grass before he came.

"Yeah," Kid answered in mid yawn. "I kept waiting for you last night that I fell asleep 'cuz I kept thinking that you would show up."

"Idiot. No one is awake at night," Law frowned.

"Well, no one is awake this early either," the boy yawned again and reached for the nestling that was on his lap.

The bird gave a high chirped and bit his hand.

"Ow!" Kid snapped his arm back. "Why do you keep biting me?!"

He hissed and sucked on the skin between his thumb and forefinger this time, a small stream of blood oozing out. Law couldn't help but laugh and softly grabbed the boy's injured hand.

"I only carry band aids for guys like you," he pulled another adhesive from his pocket and opened it to apply on the small wound.

Kid frowned like a petulant child. A soft chuckle escaped from him when he saw that he still wanted to hold the baby bird, but it only pressed deeper against his stomach to hide away from the glaring redhead.

"You need to ease up your face," Law petted the nestling. He picked it up gently and handed it over to Kid who was trying hard not to frown, but once the baby bird saw Kid's face, it began to fluff its feathers and chirped to get away from him. Law continued to land the nestling in Kid's hands anyway and it quieted.

As long as Law's hands were touching it, the baby bird seemed to be okay and was content in the redhead's palms. It shivered happily and became oblivious to the danger it was in, or thought it was never in.


	2. Kid-ya

**~Vermilion Flycatcher~**

**Chapter 2 - Kid-ya**

* * *

Two days later, the bird kept chirping incessantly in Law's room. Its voice began to sound loudly bright and early in the morning, and the teen had to get up from his bed to open his closet and see what was wrong. Nothing was amiss, the bird still in its box, except that it was singing so energetically. Law tried to hush it as he picked it up, but it wouldn't stop. He put it back in its box and hurried to get himself dressed and wash up in the bathroom before coming back to the bird and stuffing it in his hoodie. He grabbed his yellow scarf and headed out.

It was four A.M. and the light was still cloudy and grey, the morning mist still thickly hovering above the ground, but the nestling seemed to think it was the best time of the day to vocalize its little heart out. Law was able to sneak out the mansion without getting caught. That was all the mist was good over – to be used as a cover. He briskly began his trek through the forest with the bird singing all the way, and tried his best to get as far away from the mansion premises as quickly as possible so no one would hear and wake up.

The bird was probably hungry, but he didn't stop to feed it until he came by the tree from where they found it. Law huffed tiredly and sat on the floor. The spot he settled on looked just like any others with tall grass covering the ground, but even in his hazy, sleep deprived mind, it wasn't. At first glance, it didn't look like anything special. In fact, the "special" tree itself was as brown and tall as the trees surrounding it, but Law had made a way of knowing. There was a ring of violet crocus flowers, the flowers that dawned the coming of spring, which surrounded the tree with a few snippets of striped squills in the mix. The arrangement, not the flowers themselves, made the unique indication. One stem of light blue squill sprouted near the tree's roots to which Law made himself comfortable.

His fingers found their way to the nestling's breakfast.

He had actually taken the bag of worms Kid gave him and he was down to his last one. Although, there hadn't been a lot to begin with. He took it out from his pocket and picked out the remaining worm, the thing squirming between his fingers. The nestling chirped happily upon seeing it, and in a matter of seconds, Law cut it up into tiny palatable pieces with his ability and butterfly knife he carried around.

The Flycatcher gulped each and every piece, and Law watched it contently. Feeling groggy as it was still too early in the morning, he let his head lean back against the bark of the tree. His eyes closed from the heaviness as he breathed in the wet air, the sharpness freshening his lungs. The bird moved in his lap as it fed and he concentrated on its chirping.

The darkness of the forest, the dampness of the grass from the morning dew, Law let it all in and he soon lost hours into seconds.

An intense light disrupted his sleep, and Law woke up to see a brightened scenery of the forest and a picture of Kid sitting in front of him crossed legged as he held up two sticks of meat that he was trying to keep away from the baby bird. He held his arms far apart as the Flycatcher hopped around his legs, the creature peering up at him in want and curiosity of the food. He turned his head when he heard Law stir, a crooked smile forming on his face.

"Hey, sleepy head. Sleep much?"

The older boy cleared his throat in a deep rasp. He rubbed his eyes with the bone of his palms trying to get used to the amount of light infiltrating his senses.

"I told you no one comes this early," he heard Kid say.

Law rubbed his cheeks feeling the forest dirt coating his face, the urge of wanting to wash his face coming up.

"I didn't come here for you," he grumbled a little grumpy from just waking. The stiffness of not moving for hours in a hardened position didn't help any. "The bird woke me up early."

The nestling chirped in response and Kid laughed a little. The older boy wasn't that happy though as he closed his eyes and rubbed his stiff shoulders.

"Here, I have something for you," he told Law to brighten him up.

"What? Another bag of worms?"

"No. This."

Law opened his eyes again and the redheaded boy was holding out one of the sticks towards him.

"What is this?"

Law wasn't in the mood for another present. He looked at the stick not knowing what sort of meat was pierced on it. It was something light brown, the skin a nice dark with some black spots where the fire had hit it strongly when it was being cooked.

"It's the bird I said I'll have for dinner. I told you I'll find that bird who attacked the nest," Kid took a bite out of his own stick.

The Flycatcher chirped energetically and fluffed its wings as if it was happy upon seeing Kid take its revenge in its place.

"I think I'll pass," Law held up his hand. "I'm not very hung- *grraarrr….."

Law's eyes widened in shock, his own stomach growling and interrupting him mid-sentence. Kid stopped midway through his bite of meat, eyes darting up at him, and began laughing. A tint of pink rose up Law's cheeks and he frowned listening to his barking laughter.

Damn his own stomach for betraying him! The teen wrapped his arms around his belly holding it down.

"Just take it," Kid shoved the stick of meat at him.

He still had that evident curl to his lips, and Law meekly took it from his hands. Potential diseases be damned.

He smelled the flame and smoke from the meat, edges of the wood partly burnt, and he could tell it was barbequed or at least held over an open fire. Law held it to his lips and sunk his teeth in ripping out a good chunk. He ate it slowly letting the flavors swirl in his tongue and an odd, interesting seasoning tingled his taste buds. It actually tasted really good, the tang and spice mixing well with the meat.

Kid looked at him as he ate trying to see if he liked it, and Law pouted even more looking away. He heard the boy huff out a laughing breath, and the want of stabbing Kid with the stick he held grew stronger just so he could wipe that grin off his face.

* * *

"What time do you usually wake up, Eustass-ya?"

It had been the next day and Law had returned to the area of where they had first met. It was now tacitly acknowledged as their meeting spot, or simply, just their spot. They were sitting under the tree's shade and Kid was now playing with the baby chick. The nestling finally started to take a liking to him after so long. But Law had come early, hours ago in fact, and Kid hadn't showed until now. It was maybe eleven or so judging by how high the sun was in the sky, and he was a little peeved so he asked. Not knowing and just waiting until a person came wasn't a fun or thrilling game. It was really quite the opposite.

Kid didn't really look at him and continued to rub the baby bird with his finger.

"I dunno. I don't really check the time, but I'm awake by the time the shipbuilders are there by the shipyard."

"The shipyard?"

"By the shore," Kid looked at him now. "I live there so I always see them. Sometimes, I come down there and help out when I feel like it. They're usually there by seven, but I don't have a clock to make sure."

Law deepened his crouch and leaned forward to rest against his elbow on his knee. He let out a little throat of a response equivalent to an "okay."

He didn't know that Kid lived close to the shore, but that would explain why he smelled like the sea. The scent of open waters clung to him like a natural cologne. By leaning closer, he could get a stronger whiff of salt and wind.

"Where do _you_ live?" it was Kid's turn to ask.

Law took a moment to answer and pointed to a nonsense direction. "In the hills."

He didn't clarify since he didn't want anyone to know to know where he was living. If he gave any stronger hints, anyone who was native to the island would know that he lived in the highland hills. That was where Doflamingo built his villa like mansion, and any connection to the blonde, he wanted to keep secret. Kid didn't really seem to care though and took it in as a good enough answer.

* * *

It was odd. Law seemed to be looking forward for the next few days. Not that he slept very early, but he seemed to wake better this week and left for the forest pretty early in the morning. Not like he needed a lot of sleep anyway. He was just the type of person that didn't need more than five hours of sleep to function. Just give him that, and he'll work just as fine as a normal person who slept for eight.

He made it to their spot at around seven or eight depending on how fast he walked, the air still nice and cool. He sat down at his usual spot next to the lone stalk of striped squill and leaned back comfortably against the tree's trunk. He knew that Kid would come much later when the sun was more visible and high in the sky, but he liked the peace and quiet he was able to get when he waited for him. With the baby bird sleeping snugly on his lap, he opened up a book he had brought along and began to read from the last chapter he left off. It was a book about rare diseases, and he had left off at the "s" chapter, the book being organized in alphabetical order of different cases.

Law sighed when he flipped the page and a picture of a hummingbird showed. A paragraph of brief commentary went below it, and an expanded list of information was written on the side and the next preceding pages. He must've misplaced his other book with this one when he was trying to find out more about Flycatchers. He closed the book and leaned back against the tree. He had nothing to do now, his reading time turning to such a waste. Dispirited, he thought that he might as well sleep. It was a good chance to make up for the hours he lost by listening to last night's screaming in the basement instead.

And maybe the night before that as well. And the night before that.

Law's lips quirked at his own joke.

* * *

Kid had come late, and he had come disoriented. They didn't talk much and the redhead looked pretty much too tired to keep a conversation. There was a slight darkness under his eyes and he had come from the bushes a bit lumbering so Law just let him exchange a few gruff words before Kid semi-collapsed beside him.

The redhead tried to pick up the baby chick on Law's lap and accidentally woke it. The nestling began to flap its wings against his touch until it became impossible to take the bird away from Law. The older teen just smirked, a soft chuckle escaping his lips, and found it amusing watching Kid struggle. He opened up his book pretending to read and left the younger boy to wrestle for the baby bird's affection. Once again, Kid became nicked on his hand and Law lost another band aid.

It was a while until Law finally noticed when time had passed and Kid had stopped futilely trying to hold the nestling. He had become so immersed in the book even though it was just filled with random information about Aves that he had impressively blocked everything out, both the loud grumbling and the chirping. Law didn't feel the fondling fight against his thighs anymore either, just numbness running through his legs, so he lifted up his book to look down. There, instead of fighting, was Kid laying down, head on his lap with eyes closed. Lack of energy still on his face, he lay still. His hands were spread to the side, open, no baby bird in his palms. Yellow eyes began scanning around looking for the nestling and almost missed it atop of Kid's head. It's red feathers, the same shade as the Southern boy's fiery locks, camouflaged into the mess of hair.

Law smiled to himself. Finally, the two were peaceful. Even though Kid looked partly dead, it was still a nice picture and easy to his ears. Kid had his goggles around his neck and his unexpectedly long hair was spread everywhere, some covering his face. An easy stream of breath came in and out of the boy's nose making a long strand of hair flutter within every exhale. Law reached forward to draw it aside, and Kid woke. His eyes darted open with a jolt, his arm shooting out instinctively and knocking out Law's book out of his hand. The book fell right on Kid's face and he sat up in pain. With the sudden movements, the baby bird luckily just safely slid deeper into Law's legs and blinked its eyes from sleep.

"Ow!" Kid keeled over pinching his nose where the edge of the book had hit. "What the hell?!" He gritted his teeth and hissed. He turned around to glare at Law who was looking at him wide eyed. He hadn't expected him to wake and react so viciously. The shock on his face made Kid calm down, but he remained moaning. "I thought you were going to attack me!"

"Why would I attack you?" Law frowned.

Kid continued to hiss and didn't answer. "Urgh…" he sniffed and wiped the bottom of his nose to see if there was any blood. His hand came out clean as there wasn't any, and he stopped hissing all together.

He looked around looking for the cursed object that hit him, and Kid found the book laying on the floor spread open. His brows furrowed in contempt and dragged the thing closer. He tilted his head when he saw a picture of a pink bird perching on a branch. It's fluffy pink feathers puffed up at its raised wing. A hint of yellow and white streaked at its head and down to its back. The bird's long neck curved down at a high arc as it looked down, its wide yellow beak open making it look like it was laughing at something down below.

"Hey," Kid picked up the book and showed it to Law. "This was the bird that I roasted the other day."

Law leaned forward to take a closer look and his voice caught. An uncanny familiarity set in his brain down to the piercing laughter that played in his brain. It sounded so real that it almost felt like someone was laughing in his ears. He read the brief commentary at the bottom of the picture.

_The Caw Caw bird is a distant relative of the more well-known Flamingo. Unlike its cousin, it travels from South Blue to other seas to lay its eggs, then comes back to live the rest of its life in the South once they have learned how to fly. With its huge size, it is known as a predator and feeds among other birds._

Law took the book from Kid's hands and flipped the page.

"Do you know what type of bird our's is?" he asked changing the subject.

Kid crinkled his nose still trying to ease the pain and scooted over right next to him.

"No. I never thought about it. Isn't it just a bird?"

Law shook his head forcing out a short breath. "It's a Vermilion Flycatcher. Look," he flipped to the page he found days ago.

The younger boy moved his head closer against the teen's shoulder. He read the information briefly, but mostly looked at the picture of the similar red feathered ave they had.

"Hey," he suddenly said. "Ever thought about naming it?"

"What?" Law cocked a brow at him.

"The baby bird."

The teen looked at Kid then back at the drowsy nestling sitting on his lap.

"The shipbuilders I work with told me that if you don't give a ship a name, then it would never sail."

"The bird isn't a ship. It's a bird," Law closed the book and laid it on the ground.

"But what if it never flies?"

_Never flies?_ The older teen stared at Kid for a while. Not every bird was given a name by a human and they still all flew. In an everyday occurrence, there were thousands of birds a person saw each day, and most of them nameless. Not naming a bird didn't mean that it wouldn't fly.

"Think about it," the boy continued. "The parent birds always whisper to their babies before they try attempting to fly. Don't you think that they give them a name? That's why humans have names so that when they do something big, everyone knows who they are. You see parents thinking hard for the perfect name when they have a kid and hope that they do something good with their selves one day when they grow up. It's the same for birds. Flying is like the ultimate thing for birds, and having a name means that everyone will know that they've accomplished something."

"Who told you that?" Law furrowed his brows. "Your parents?"

"My friend," Kid shook his head. "I don't have parents."

"Mhn," Law could only nod to that. He shifted his eyes letting the silence fill in until he let out an almost whisper. "I don't have parents either."

As if naturally, the two didn't look at each other only to accept each other's intimate truth. Not like Law was hiding it, but he would have not told anyone otherwise if Kid never confessed to it first. It was a fact that no one else needed to know. The fact of not having any parents didn't define him in any way, and he didn't care for it. He lost them so there was no reason to miss something he would never again have. There were no parents that fussed and worried about giving him a name as far as he was concerned, though his real parents probably had. There were no memories to hold his heart close, no happiness, no anger, no hate nor longing that was ever given to him to feel about two odd faces that he would never see again. There were never two souls that ever gave him meaning to be created as one.

Law didn't want to reminisce. For the past years, he had done everything to forget. He was so close to believing that the two people who birthed him never existed. The truth for him now was that he had always been an orphan – a child forever alone who was facing the whole world by himself.

He had to face it. If there was a great entity out there, they were cruel and wanted to drive the message deep that he shouldn't get attached. He thought that he had a family, but it was twice taken away from him with murder. He wasn't meant to have a family. He was fated to be alone.

Memories of cold snow infiltrated his mind; the scene of looking up at the azure sky as he stood alone knee deep in a blizzard while a sedated flow of white softness fell softly down to the earth came piercing in his brain. The numbness of his body shook his nerves in fear of death as he thought that he would actually die until a pair of warm arms came wrapping from behind him. The huge, long arms engulfed him completely melting the ice crystals that frosted on his skin, and they trapped him against a warm wall of heat. It was the kind body of a man he didn't know, black feathers of a foreign animal coating him.

"Who named you?" Law asked.

Kid still did not look at him. His focus was elsewhere maybe remembering his own past. It was odd to think that they already had one when they were both still so young.

"My friend did," Kid answered. "He said he found me in a boat with a pirate flag that drifted to shore so he named me after a pirate."

"William Kidd." Even he knew the infamous captain.

"Yeah." Kid looked down to his black painted nails. "I'ma live up to that name one day, you know."

"You're going to become a pirate?"

He turned to grin at Law, his cockiness showing. "Hell yeah. I'm going to leave South Blue one day and find One Piece, then everyone would know the name Eustass Kid. Not William Kidd, _Eustass Kid. My name._ I'm gonna surpass even Whitebeard out there, and then people will be naming kids after me."

Law let out a small laugh. "Are we going to have little babies named after 'Captain' Kid in the future?"

"The one and only captain of the Kid Pirates."

Law couldn't help but grin wider as he could only picture Kid ordering around a bunch of children haphazardly on a ship. "Kid Pirates" How cute. No matter how childish it sounded though, Law could see the determination. It wasn't a hope or dream the way he meant it. It was a statement and a promise, a future fact that Kid will make come true. Kid picked a blade of grass from the floor and threw it at Law's direction.

"Who named_you_?" he was looking at him now.

Law looked up at the sky, its soft blue shaded lighter with clouds of white. It was funny how the real sky looked fake, while in dreams, it looked real. He had so many dreams of just gazing up at that endless blue that the presently sunny sky just seemed so unreal.

"I don't know," Law picked up the bird on his lap and leaned to his side laying his head on Kid's shoulder. "My name was already written on my birth certificate. I don't know who chose my name."

Kid sat still and didn't make a sound. His body was a little hunched over, and it was hard for Law to lean on him right. The boy was already shorter than him by half a head and he had to adjust himself lower to get comfortable. Kid would grow taller than him when he gets older, Law was sure. He could tell that Kid was younger than him but he was already almost his height. The genetics were just there.

"Kid," Law chose a name without much contemplation.

"Hm?" the boy turned at the mention of his name.

"Eustass-ya" he pointed to the redhead then to the baby bird. "Kid."

Kid blinked a couple of times before he got it. "You're going to name it after me?!"

"Yeah. I think it suits it."

"No! Name it something else!" Kid growled. "It doesn't even like me!"

"But you guys exude the same melanin. Look," Law put the baby bird close to Kid's hair to prove a point. "You're like its parent already."

The boy shook his head to get the nestling away from him.

"If anyone is a parent, it's you. You're the one that's taking care of it at your house, aren't you?"

"But you're the one that asked me to in the first place," he gave a smile. "After _you_ found it."

"We can't have the same name," Kid frowned. "What are you going to call me if you're going to call it 'Kid?'"

"That's why you're Eustass-ya, and this is Kid-ya," he lifted up the nestling for emphasis and the boy let out a grumbling whine.

Law laughed, the feeling he hadn't felt in ages. The rumble coming up his throat felt foreign, the passageway feeling so unused. Even to his own ears, it sounded like he had never heard himself so happy before. A red blush colored the younger boy's cheeks so deep upon hearing him laugh.

"Fine," he gave in. "But the next time we're naming something, it's going to be named Law."

The older teen smiled widely as he brought the Flycatcher to his own face. It might look like he was cooing at the fluffy animal, but he definitely wasn't. Law never cooed. He was just grinning right now.

"You hear that?" he asked and the Flycatcher tilted it's head asking what. "You have a name now. Kid-ya."

* * *

The next day when Law forgot his scarf, Kid came even later. Maybe at around three in the afternoon, he came. As usual, Law was waiting for him under the tree, and even the baby bird Kid chirped when he came rustling out of the bushes. Paler than usual, Kid stumbled towards him and dropped on his lap to take a nap. No "hi's" or "hello's," he just fell asleep.

Law looked down at the sleeping boy on his thighs, eyebrows raised. But Kid just looked so tired, and he had gotten a new bruise at the edge of his lip. There was a bit of blood staining his fingers, and Law wanted to reach for his hand. Although, learning from last time at how alert the boy could be if he woke, he refrained from doing so. Law just left it at that and let Kid rest. Perhaps he'd take care of his injuries later. Law picked up his book that he brought along, the correct one this time, and read. But after a few hours of sitting in the same position, he too fell asleep.

They didn't wake up until a chill ran up Law's back making him shiver, and he opened his eyes. It was dark and all he could see were different shades of black. He tilted his head to look up above only to see the moon glow in full radiance. The stars next to it tried to shine as bright, but even in their numbers, they couldn't compare. The teen continued looking up awed. It had been years since he had he seen so many stars as Doflamingo had never allowed him to be out this late. They looked so beautiful, each one twinkling out of sync from each other as if to greet him. A set of arms suddenly tightened around Law's waist and he noticed the warmth that had been on his lap all along. Kid stirred pressing his nose into his belly seeking for his warmth back. And just for a little while, Law decided to let him until he had to inevitably wake him.

He sat there in the moonlight for a good half hour before he looked down at Kid again. He could hardly make out his face, but oddly, Law liked it that way. He lifted his hand to shake the boy by the shoulder. Just before he touched him though, he stopped. The teen's brow twitched not knowing why he couldn't move. A part of him didn't want to go through with it. He didn't want to wake Kid.

He sat there frozen in position inches from touching Kid's skin. His hand shook when he tried to force it to go down and he realized why.

Was it a crime to want to stay like this?

Law took a deep breath and his leg moved by itself to push Kid's head hard enough to wake him.

"Hrmugh?"

He heard Kid's disconcerted moan to know that the trick worked. Well, partly. The boy still held his waist and only hugged tighter. Kid didn't want to let go yet. He wanted to continue sleeping.

"Wake up," Law demanded almost coldly. He didn't want to have to push the boy off of him.

Defiantly and sleepily, Kid didn't move. His only response was another grumble.

"I don't want to."

* * *

**A/N: My pardon if you have read this before and noticed some changes. This fic was started before Law's history came out, and I wanted it to follow cannon a little more tightly so I made a few refinements. Hopefully, this was okay. Happy readings!**


	3. What is it?

**A/N: For MrsxRoronoa, Shiina Yuki, Guest (aw man, wish I knew who you were), Mezaron, and all the others who have like, read, and/ reviewed this story. I'm mostly dead in this account now I guess, and I've been missing private messages and the like. Sorry for the extremely long hiatus. **

* * *

**~Vermilion Flycatcher~**

**Chapter 3 - What is it?**

* * *

Kid's face nuzzled against his stomach as the boy's arms tightened around his waist. Law ignored the incoherent whines, but did nothing to physically make the boy let go. Instead, he let the cold night air bite against his face. Since he was awake now, his body was slowly registering the low temperature of the forest, and he didn't deny that Kid's warmth felt nice in comparison.

Law closed his eyes and breathed slowly trying to steal as much time he could with lethargic movements. His hand lifted to push the boy off, but somehow, his fingers ended up brushing through reddened locks.

"…ck off, Trafalgar…" Kid moaned, and he didn't doubt that there was a curse word muttered in there.

Realizing what he was doing, Law stopped moving, but kept his hand where it was.

"Eustass," he said with more conviction than he felt. "I need to leave."

"Mhn," Kid groaned annoyed. He curled his body slightly closer against the older teen. "Stop fuhm… movin'… Just stay here an' stop botherin' me…"

Law would have let out a little chuckle at any other time, but now, his mind was getting clearer too. The darkness of the sky was sinking in. It was late. _Really _late. He had never returned home later than five in the afternoon, and that was when the sun was barely setting. There would be faint traces of red and orange in the sky, but now, it was black. A certain man would be looking for him and finding him soon. Although, that wasn't what he was worried about.

Law told himself to push the redhead off his lap _now_. He was berating himself for why he hadn't done so already, and this would probably be deemed as the stupidest moment in his life because he's _still _not doing it, and he's just sitting there staring at the dark shadow of this _stubborn, stubborn boy_. His hands are starting to hurt from the cold, but the heat radiating against his thighs is enough to override the pain. He scolds himself a second time. It would be easier to just stand up and let the boy roll off naturally, except, somehow, he convinces himself not to. He stays seated in his spot and steals a few more minutes of silence.

Yes, it was greedy.

But it was just so hard.

When Law finally decided that enough was enough, he had wasted too much time already, he forced his hand to move. Kid was falling into a deep sleep again, but a good shove would fix that. He almost touches Kid's face when he hears a snap. His whole body instantly froze, but his eyes jumped to scan behind the trees. He can't see anything because even with the waning moon, it's still too dim. Silence fill the air, and his gut is getting tangled in knots. The feeling of wanting to stay is gone, and his face falls into a mask. His palm presses firmly against Kid's mouth to keep him from making a sound, and the abruptness of if it all snaps Kid awake.

The boy's eyes flew open.

"Don't talk," Law whispered, but that only roused the redhead to think that something was off.

Kid gripped the hand that was over his mouth, and Law could see him parting his lips to speak so he swiftly pulled the boy up by his wrist. Law was able to adjust the baby bird that was laying on his lap moments before onto one of his palms while the other held tightly to Kid's wrist. The boy stumbled a bit as they got to their feet. Without warning, Law started dragging him in the direction that the boy usually came from. He could just sense the confusion that was swirling inside the Kid's head, but all he offered was, "You need to go."

The arm in his hold struggled until it finally broke free.

"Trafalgar. What the hell?" Kid was fully awake now, although his voice was a bit groggy when he snarled. He stopped walking, but Law wrapped his hand around the boy's wrist again to keep urging him forward. "Shit. What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"Quiet!" Law snapped.

He realized too late that the harshness in his voice sounded too urgent. After a few seconds, he added, "Nothing. Nothing is wrong with me."

"Then why the hell are you dragging me?"

"Because it would be worrisome if you didn't get home safely," he quipped. Internally, he was having a difficult time keeping his tone soft. "Don't you have people waiting at home for you? It's quite late."

"Damn it, Trafalgar!" Kid cursed loudly ignoring what he had been told earlier

There was the shuffling of leaves as the boy almost tripped on a rock and brushed up against a bush. Law wouldn't slow down so he cursed some more. It seemed like Kid couldn't stop crashing into objects and kicking his own feet once he started, and that only contributed to getting the redhead to not only feel even more disoriented, but pissed as well. They didn't get pretty far when a hand latched on to Law's shoulder and forced him to turn around.

"Can you just stop for a sec, and tell me what's going on?!"

Law huffed. They didn't have time for this. A scowling face glared at him when he stared at the dark figure of Kid. Shadows hid most of the boy's features, but it was obvious that he wasn't happy. Law waited as patiently as he could knowing that he had to ease the younger boy somehow to stop making a fuss. He stared at the boy's tense shoulders as he tried thinking of what to say. His mind was telling him that he shouldn't have gotten too worked up himself in the beginning, but the very imminent threat of Vergo was driving his nerves mad. He could handle Doffy's dog if it was just by himself, but Kid needed to go. He needed to be as far away as possible.

"It's late," was all he could come up with, and the answer was quickly getting repetitive.

He looked down wishing he could explain more, but the explanation would sound horrible. Some part of him was afraid – afraid that if he did tell Kid everything, the boy would come to hate him. Yes, as if he could easily say that the person he considered as his mentor employed a man to make sure that he was well behaved. Said man took delight in abusing him merely because he could, and his mentor thought that a good beating from time to time was a nice lesson so he didn't stop it.

"Are we going the right way to your home?" Law spoke feeling strained.

Kid moved so swiftly that he was caught off guard. The boy used the arm Law was holding onto to pull him back behind him, and in a few steps, the redhead was in front of him in a protective stance. His arms were spread wide around Law ready to attack. At first, Law's heart was beating wildly expecting Vergo to jump out from the darkness. The two of them stood still eyeing their surroundings, but nothing happened.

Kid slowly let up from how he was standing, but didn't look away from a spot a few meters away. Law relaxed slightly as well, and it was then he noticed what had transpired. A frown bent his lips.

"I don't need protecting, Eustass-ya. I can take of myself perfectly fine."

"Shut up. I just thought I heard something."

"It must have been some animals that have gone out to hunt. There are many nocturnal predators in this forest. This is exactly why you must return home."

"Yeah, you keep going on about that," Kid turned to face him. The irksome tone in his voice returned now that the feeling of danger had temporarily passed. "Do you usually get this annoying at night, or do you have curfew or something? Why do you want me to go back so much?"

Law was glad for the darkness because it hid his uneasy stare at the same direction Kid had been looking. "Eustass, you must have realized that the sun has disappeared."

He received a snort in reply.

"No shit. I can see. Not like it matters since I've slept here before. My friends aren't gonna go looking for me unless I don't come back in the morning. If you're gonna get worried, worry about yourself. You're the one that's gonna get scolded at since it takes you an hour to get home."

Kid's voice trailed as if he was just making an off-handed comment, but the last part made Law's head snap at him. His yellow eyes widened.

"What do you mean it takes me an hour to get home?" he asked carefully. Now, he was more scared of what Kid did know.

The boy folded his arms against his chest as he switched his weight on one foot. "C'mon. I know you're not from here. I'm not an idiot. Asshole…"

There was a bit of bashfulness when he cursed.

"I can tell by your clothes. They're different and nice. I mean, look at me."

There was a pause to when Law did. He couldn't see them clearly now, but he remembered from earlier what the boy was wearing. Kid's faded grey hoodie was fraying at the ends, and was missing the strings attached to the hood. Law never mentioned it, but the sweater looked to have been owned for a handful of hard years. Kid's pants were black and seemed decent enough, but it was baggy on him and had a hole on one knee. His shoes, the most worn looking out of all that he had on, was supposed to be a dark brown, but the outer leather was peeling off at the toes and heel to make the boots grey instead. Not that Law cared how either of them dressed, but Kid was right about the contrast. Doffy had money and dressed him affluently; his whole wardrobe was designed and tailored from North Blue and Dressrosa. Kid, on the other hand, was just another punk that lived in the docks.

He wanted to tell him that their different status was never something he considered relevant, but even though Kid talked about things that happened near his home, Law knew that the boy was too conscious about it. It wasn't exactly embarrassment. He just got put down by the fact sometimes.

"Unless you stole 'em, then you're fresh off the boat from sailing here," Kid grumbled when he felt he paused for long enough. "You also bring those big ass books to read, and you said you were studying to become a doctor. You're an apprentice to some doctor, right?"

Law said nothing to admit or deny it.

"So you're staying in the inner district then. That's where all the foreigners go." The redhead took the silence as confirmation and grunted which made it hard to tell whether or not the boy was annoyed at him.

Kid was scrutinizing him up and down. Law didn't know why the longer he felt the brown eyes on him, the guiltier he felt. It wasn't exactly a lie if he did nothing to convince Kid that what he _assumed_ was or wasn't true. In a way, he was right on target about him shadowing a mentor. He saw Doffy as someone who was teaching him new and crazy things, and they did come to South Blue for medical "research." Other than that, it wasn't that important for the redhead to really know where he was temporarily residing. It wasn't as if he was going to invite the boy over to what – meet Doffy himself? To have lunch where the boy would end up being the meal?

"I'm not stupid," Kid suddenly said breaking the teen out of his thoughts.

Law blinked, again thrown as to why the redhead would think that. "I never said that."

"Then stop treating me that way," he felt Kid push him on the shoulder, but not roughly. His body swayed back a little. Before he could correct his posture, there were hands on each of Law's arms which kept his body steady for him. "So tell me why you're acting like something's going to eat us."

"I am not 'acting' in _any _way," Law said defensively. He shrugged off both the redhead's hands and stood straight. Using his height since he was still taller than the other boy, he looked down at him. "Eustass, I am older than you. I'm doing what any responsible person would do and that is to make sure that a kid like you doesn't get hurt. There are many dangers that appear at night, especially in South Blue. If you know that I'm a foreigner, then you should know that your country doesn't hold the cleanest reputation to the rest of the world, especially here. This city is near a popular port. _You live by the docks_. There are pirates coming and going, the reports for criminal activity in this city is at its highest rate, and we're in a forest – "

A suppressed snort interrupted him mid-sentence.

"What?" Law asked affronted. He wasn't joking about any of the possible dangers lurking in this city. When Kid started sniggering, he raised an unimpressed brow. "This isn't a laughing matter."

Unfortunately, the boy didn't seem to think so. Kid was wearing a wide grin, and Law could just feel the haughtiness exuding from the younger boy in waves.

"I get it now," he said as if he just unraveled a great secret.

"Get what?"

"That you're scared."

Law pursed his lips. If only Kid could understand that he was scared for _his _life. _He _was the one that was going to die if they were found by the wrong person, but he was acting as if the situation they were in wasn't such a great peril.

"Eustass," he hissed. "You _don't_ understand."

"No, I do," the boy insisted. "So I'll take you home. I'll walk you back if that'll make you feel better. I know this city like the back of my hand so we can take some shortcuts. If your mentor or whatever gets mad at you for breaking curfew, just tell 'em that a punk from the city kept you. It's the truth anyway."

"_Eustass_, listen to me – "

"Trafalgar, I don't care if you _are_ older. I'm not gonna listen to you if you can't admit that you're scared of a bear or a dumb robber. Just trust me."

Law could barely restrain himself from lashing out, but the abrupt sounds of shuffling leaves and twigs drew the two from their conversation. Their heads jerked at the direction they had been staring at before towards a tall bush. Something was fast approaching, and it was pushing an ominous feeling deep into Law's stomach. Kid didn't seem too bothered since he most likely thought that it was just an animal passing by, but when the noises stopped for a second then started again in an erratic rush, Law jolted into action. He snatched Kid's hand and starting running.

Kid let out a strangled noise as he tried to keep up and didn't protest because the sounds were following them. When they were side to side, he shoved their baby bird into the redhead's arms. There was a look of panic on the boy's face as he clumsily settled Kid-yainto his free hand while running. Law would apologize later, but if he was right about who was behind them, then Kid-ya would be better off with Eustass. Law's heart screamed in his chest because he felt like a rabbit being chased. His fingers tightened against the back of Kid's hand so he wouldn't lose him. The only thing in his mind was getting the boy somewhere where Vergo couldn't find him.

Navigating through the crowded trees and uneven dirt was difficult. The leaves from up above were getting thicker and beginning to block out more of the moonlight as they entered deeper into the forest. It made them keep stumbling because anything visible was limited to a three feet radius, but they ran even faster. Hoping to lose the beast chasing them, Law led Kid to jump through a few bushes so they could get off any paths. Thin branches and thorns scraped any exposed skin. Some got stuck to their clothes and continued to dig into their sides and backs as they ran.

They managed to do this a couple times until they ran out of luck and fell over a large stump hidden behind one of the bushes. Law fell right on his face first, his palms scraping the ground. Kid landed right beside him. Knowing the redhead, he was going to curse so he acted quickly. Law rolled to his side so he could wrap an arm around Kid's back and bring him closer so that he was basically hugging him while his other hand clamped over the boy's mouth. Surprisingly, the boy was compliant, but his elbow jabbed the older teen in the gut.

Scooting closer to the bush that they jumped through to get more coverage, Law draped his body over Kid's to hold still. Their breathing was ragged from all the running, but they tried to keep quiet, even if their lungs were killing them. From all the adrenaline running in his veins, Law didn't notice how tightly he was holding onto Kid. The boy's back was against his chest feeling the drumming of his erratic heart.

The two of them remained unmoving. The sounds following them were getting louder. Now that they could listen to it, the sounds were discernibly someone running with really heavy feet. _Another sign that it was Vargo, and not some random animal. _When Law felt a presence at the other side of the bush, he closed his eyes and held his breath hoping for their predator to pass them by. The sound of running slowed to walking. They stopped right at the other side of the bush so that when Law peeled open an eye, he could see a set of feet and legs through the leaves.

Law closed his eyes again. There was no doubt in his mind anymore that it was Vergo and not some burly animal. Those were human legs.

He was certain that that the man was going to find them, but he strained his ears listening for any signs of hope. Vergo stood for a while, and a small sense of relief filled him when footsteps directed away from their hiding spot. The thought of actually being able to get away entered his mind.

The ease was short lived.

An earth shaking crack made Law's eyes fly open, and they grew at the sight of a tree falling right above their heads. He and Kid rolled to the side to avoid the violent smack as the giant mass of wood collided against the dirt of where they were seconds ago.

Swiping Kid's hand again, the two picked themselves up from the floor and broke into running once more. He felt the boy look back and Law tugged Kid to face forward. Damn it, Vergo didn't need to see the boy's face.

They continued hurriedly away, but Vergo was quickly hot behind their heels in a matter of seconds. This cat and mouse game was certainly not going to work in Law's favor for the man's mercy later on. He just knew that this pointless pursuit would only prolong their inevitable capture while making the man's anger fester. Physically, the two boys couldn't keep their lead for much longer, and they were only able to escape due to an unexpected dip in the ground. The two of them slid down a slope. Kid seemed to collect himself quick and recognized where they were. He took the lead from Law and held onto his hand to keep him from falling on his rear end, but he couldn't control his legs.

Law lost his footing and his left leg bent awkwardly as he slipped. A sharp pain shot up his ankle when he landed and he cried out. Thankfully, they reached flat ground not soon after. Law powered through it as Kid helped him stand, and the redhead supported him as they hobbled over to another slope, albeit less steep than the one before. It was just big enough for them to hide behind while sitting. With Law's arm slung around his neck, Kid gently lowered the older teen to the ground.

Both of them were heaving as they sat next to each other, sweat dripping from their temples. It was warm now under their layers of clothing, and white puffs of air blew from their mouths every time they exhaled.

"Shit. Are you okay?" Kid leaned over, but kept his hands to himself in fear of touching something raw.

Law clenched his teeth and focused on his breathing. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall of dirt that they were hiding behind.

"I think I twisted my ankle."

He flinched when he put pressure on his ankle while exploring the damage. Wetness licked his fingertips, and his brows bent when he felt a loose flap of skin.

Kid's broken breathing huffed next to his cheek when the boy leaned close. He had settled their baby bird on the floor. When Law opened his eyes, he focused on the flycatcher fluffing its feathers from the cold. Kid-ya had most likely woken when they fell the first time. Everything that could go wrong tumbled down Law's mind like a growing snowball rolling down a hill, the scenarios getting bigger and bigger in tumultuous intensity, and his chest felt like it was getting tighter. He couldn't walk. The precious seconds they were wasting whilst sitting had probably enabled Vergo to catch up. The man would be coming any second, and Kid was still here –

A hand clamped on his thigh, and Law's gaze flew up. They landed on Kid's face.

The boy's cheeks were flushed with two blooming circles as sweat dripped down to his chin. His mouth was open to inhale larger amounts of air, and he looked terrified and exhilarated at the same time. Kid was going to die, and he didn't even know it. He just maintained that stupid brightness on his face as if everything was going to be okay. Their eyes locked for a long time, and Law was contemplating on how he should kill the boy himself before Vergo could get to him. A pity death. He'd kill him quickly.

Before he could decide on a method, there was an _incredibly _stupid glint in the boy's eyes that told Law that Kid was going to be an idiot.

"I'ma bait the thing away."

"Eustass! You – "

"Stay here." Kid's hand pressed tightly against him before quickly disappearing.

Law wanted to yell. _There are no heroes in real life. _He should have told him that when they first met. _T__here are only those who die, and those who don't._ Law wanted to pull the redhead from standing, but Kid was quickly on his feet before his hand could reach.

Kid jumped over the mound of dirt they were hiding behind, and Law couldn't see him anymore. When he tried to stand and call the boy back, pain coursed through his whole right leg. He slammed the back of his head against the dirt. How could Kid play the stupid hero? He _told _him he didn't need protecting. It was Kid that was in danger, and he just threw himself in front of his murderer. He clenched his jaw when he heard Kid take off into the trees somewhere.

His body started to shake from the thought that the boy was going to die because of him – because he couldn't wake up early enough. All he needed to do was open his eyes an hour or two earlier.

Frustrated fingers dug into his calves where he was bleeding as he bent over. A pressure bubbled inside his stomach. At the peak of almost bursting, he wanted to look up at the sky and scream when a hand reached over his face and slammed his head back on the dirt wall. Cold, hard fingers dug under his chin as a palm smothered his breathing.

The impact made his vision spin, but the realization came. When it did, he almost smiled.

Another hand grabbed the front of his shirt and hoisted him up.

"Curfew was at six thirty."

Everything he felt was all of a sudden gone. His body relaxed, and for the first time in what felt like hours, he was confident enough to speak calmly.

"I know. I just wanted to see you run, Vergo," he chuckled a bit.

His body slammed on the floor. Law zoned off as he prepared himself to put up at least a meager fight. Pain was numb to him now. The comfort of Vergo's presence being here instead of chasing Kid was enough.

It was enough.

A foot dug into his chest.

"Insolent brat."

He gave Vergo another winning smirk. He would've enjoyed an annoyed reaction, but the man hadn't been looking at him. Instead, Vergo's attention was directed to where Law had been hiding as a chirping sang loudly in distress.


	4. Don't Leave Me

**A/N: Sorry for the long wait. I didn't even realize how long it's been since I've updated, but I'm trying! College has me crying and hyperventilating in a corner. It's also has made me question everything that I've ever done in life. No lie, guys. College is brutal. **

* * *

**~Vermilion Flycatcher~**

**Chapter Four - Don't Leave Me**

* * *

It was like a film. He was seeing himself in one moment, and the next, he was looking at Kid's face. He didn't have to know because he already knew that there was a gap in between the two flashes of time. Kid was kneeling in front of him and was looking at him desperately, his face filled with worry. There were scratches along his cheeks and arms, and sweat had dampened the fiery red locks to stick against his temples. The boy was telling him something – no, shouting. Kid was shouting at him. Law could see his lips moving, but no sound came out. He didn't know what he was saying.

Law was lost on how to calm the boy down. He didn't understand, and Kid was obviously getting frustrated at his lack of response. The worry etched on the boy's face morphed into fear, but it quickly changed back into anger again. Kid stopped talking, but the hand he had on Law's shoulder tightened. The boy looked away for a moment before turning back to face him once more. He blurted something really quickly and he was suddenly up on his feet and running away.

Law instinctively lurched forward to stop him. _Don't go_, he wanted to scream, but his throat closed as if he was choking. His voice was lost and Kid was gone. Everything turned to black for the longest time until a distant flash of grey came into light. It was too blurry for him to see anything, and it was only until Law recognized the high white ceiling that he realized that he was opening his eyes from a dream.

The suffocating weight sitting on his chest seemed to have lifted as he realized it had all been an illusion concocted by his mind. None of what he had been through was real. It was fake – a dream.

It was all a dream.

The corner of his lips twitched into a smile, and a sharp pain blossomed around the surrounding muscle. It was like a pinprick of electricity, but the meaning of the pain slapped him on the face. Whatever relief he felt was stripped away, and a jarring wave of trepidation hit him hard. The sudden feeling was enough to ground him back to the physical world and sober him up like a splash of cold water.

Law blinked the grogginess away as he turned to his side. Tender flesh screamed as he twisted in a bed, a fluffy white sheet covering his body from the neck down. Every open flesh, every bandage, and every bruise was being catalogued in his brain as he made note of the areas of sensitivity. The fact that he was pretty badly injured meant that what he had been hoping was a dream actually wasn't.

Sunlight hit his eyes as he finally made it to his right side. The ornate arched window was like a gateway to the open skies. Barely a cloud could be seen through the open glass, the sun radiating its warmth freely into the room. Judging by the shadows casted by the trees outside, it was early afternoon. His eyes then made it to the golden birdcage sitting by the windowsill.

At first, the cage seemed to be misplaced in so many ways. It looked to be an antique, rather than a practical object. The light glowed around it making it seem as if the metal was of polished gold. It was ethereal and almost too beautiful for everything around it. With its delicate curving metal, it was a wonder why anyone would leave it by the windowsill where it could fall without an appropriate attachment. In addition, the image of the cage looked so lonely in contrast to the welcoming scenery in the background. It was empty and desolate; it looked utterly lacking.

Law narrowed his eyes, and it was then that he noticed the small mass at the bottom of the cage. It seemed as if someone pressed their palm against it to flatten it down, but there was still a small roundness at the middle.

A cloud passed by to let a ray of light fall upon the enigmatic mass, and Law caught the familiar red of a feather.

Like pulling a veil, the shrouding shadows disappeared around the little thing. Then, it turned red.

Everything was _red _around the flattened body. Everything about it was deformed, but it was obvious that it was a bird – a dead nestling laying on its stomach and wings spread. One of its legs was crooked and sticking upwards. The other was simply missing.

_Kid-ya._

If he could feel anything at all through the numbing medication that nearly immobilized him, it was dread upon seeing his and Eustass' Flycatcher so lifeless. The feeling heightened when he all too quickly accepted that this was his reality. Everything that he touched was marked with death. _Everything_. Even Eustass. The boy was probably dead. He doubted that the redhead escaped Vergo's sadistic clutches. The man was always thorough in his work. He would leave nothing behind.

The wind blew inside the room making the thin white curtain s billow, and it directed his attention to the person sitting on a chair by the windowsill. Facing away from the sun, the person's face was shadowed. Law looked up and stilled when the person met his gaze. He barely noticed that the person had been looking at him for a while now. They stared at him contemplatively. Without the accessory usually perched on the man's nose, Law could see the turbulence inside the speculative eyes. They were always picking – nipping at any sign of weakness.

It always made him feel as if moths were buzzing inside his stomach when the blonde didn't wear his shades. The deep blues were like twin vortexes that sucked him in and made him feel so naked. With just one look, they tore off the layers he had built around himself to protect the lie he had tried so hard to keep hidden.

The man _knew_. He knew his secret. His _lie_.

The blonde kept in his seat, his head drawn away from the book that he was reading, while his hands and book rested on the leg that crossed over the other. The man's head tilted as he gave a smile.

"You've been spending too much time in the forest, haven't you, little bird?"

Law schooled his expression into a blank stare.

"Yes, Doffy."

His lids lowered back to the bed, and that was it. He relaxed every muscle so he could go back to sleep. It was over. The weight from the medication dragged his lashes down.

"I'm getting tired of it though," he whispered just loud enough for it to reach across the room. "I don't think I'll be going back for a while."

* * *

Law didn't go back to the forest again. To avoid any reprimands, he had been staying in the villa as of late. He got himself lost in the experiments that he and Doflamingo continued to conduct. His remorse over the killing of women and children faded into a dull empathy, and soon, Law was finding his days passing by without much recollection. Everything felt mechanical. Everything was just a reason to move.

He looked down at his blood stained hands. Some of the blood had splattered on his face and clothes as well so he was merely cleaning up in the washroom. His fingers flexed stiffly as he bowed his head.

This was his "normal." This was his life.

He turned the red knob and put his hands under the rush of water. Red mixed into the colorless liquid and swirled in the porcelain sink as the water trickled down the drain. His mind wandered for a good few minutes until he realized that he had been spacing out. Catching himself, he turned off the water and left his wrists hanging at the edge of the sink. His raw, pink hands hung loosely as steam wafted from them in the air.

His grey eyes fell blankly on the mirror before him as met his own reflection. His skin had gone pallid from the lack of sun and his cheeks had hollowed slightly. His eyes though – his eyes, they were looking at him with pity. Before he could decipher any hint of longing or anger, Law whirled around to grab at the towel hanging on a hook by the wall to dry his hands.

This was his life – his normalcy.

He stepped out of the washroom, his hands raw as it touched the surrounding chill air, only to meet an unpleasant sight passing in the hallway. Adorned in his usual coat, Vergo was passing by, probably to report to Doffy. He was, after all, in the floor of his mentor's study. He had come with the blonde to discuss their findings right after they conducted business in the basement. Law, wanting to finish their meeting quickly, had followed the flamingo upstairs with his hands still bloody and opted to clean up later. Clearly, that was a bad decision on his part because his eyes slanted at the current situation he had been dropped in.

The ill-timed appearance of the older man made his blood boil. He had been doing well in not feeling anything, but the moment his eyes fell on the hard face of his mentor's dog, everything that had been building up under the emotional lid Law created came bubbling out. Vergo just noticed his presence when Law's hands came shooting up. His fruit's room ability stretched to reach the man less than a few feet away. The pressure inside him whenever he used his ability grew, knots forming in his stomach from the strain, as he pushed his limits for a stronger attack. He had every intent of slicing Vergo up into bits.

A burst of air exploded in the hallway as gashes ripped the walls and broke any nearby furniture. Fragments of plaster from the ceiling fell to the floor as the air traveled. A sharp crack of glass followed a step behind the wind, and Law could see the white jagged lines branching against the tinted glass of Vergo's shades before the glass exploded from the man's face. Instantaneous rips appeared on the man's clothes tearing the man's shirt across his chest, but underneath, untouched skin poked through.

There was a second of realization crossing Vergo's widened eyes before he was up and personal against Law's space. Rough knuckles backhanded the teen's cheek like a bar of steel jarring his skull. Law fell to the floor tasting blood. He quickly propped himself up to his elbows when a boot dug into his stomach and sent his back to the wall.

He felt like throwing up. The nauseous feeling was worse than the pain of the foot sliding down and stomping hard on his shin. He cried out in pain, Vergo looking heavier than he was, and he already looked like a walking solid mass of muscle. His hands tried weakly to push Vergo's leg off of him, but he was no match when the man used his haki.

"I thought you'd learn your lesson by now."

Law said nothing and grit his teeth through the pain.

Another kick landed against his ribs that sent him keeling over and spitting out a trail of saliva down his chin.

"You should ease up on the kid, or else you'll upset the young master."

The pressure of Vergo's foot didn't ease against his side, but the man did cease to attack. Law gathered air into his lungs before turning his aching body to look up. Wavy, green hair cascaded down delicate shoulders and an impressive bosom as he glared up at another one of his mentor's family members. Unearthly, narrow irises looked down at him unsympathetically. The yellow eyes took him in for a moment before shifting to the older man.

Monet, in a rare blue overcoat in place of her revealing clothing due to the weather, stepped closer as if meaning to pass them by.

"Doffy has already extended his curfew. Don't make him think that he needs to make any more changes. Law _is_ his favorite for a reason."

The soft steps of her boots echoed down the hall as Vergo gave her words a silent thought. His eyes followed her back, the big, regal doors of their family head's office in the distant background. There was a knowing threat hiding under her words reminding him of the lines that Doffy had drawn on every single one of the Don Quixote family members. Everyone had privileges given to them, but it was a right, and they were gifts that could be taken away. Usually, they were taken in trade of severe punishment. Namely, death, if they weren't so important.

Law mulled over the implication of her warning as well. Did he hate it – being called the Joker's favorite?

The pain throbbing at his shin eased as Vergo lifted his leg and turned away. The bastard made sure to give a rough twist reopening a stitch from an earlier injury before completely stepping off. He didn't spare Law another glance as he left to trail after the harpy.

An ugly sneer grew on Law's face as he braced his hands against the wall to pick himself up. His injured leg was probably badly bruised, as well as his stomach and side, but nothing was broken. Still, it made it painful to stand, and he glared at the two bodies entering the study room down the hall. His eyes burned with hateful passion, his hatred fueled strongly like it had only done before when he had to escape from Flevance.

He wanted murder. He wanted death.

Law wiped the saliva on his chin with the back of his hand.

His mind was focused on what Monet's intentions were. The woman didn't care too much for him, and neither did he for her. Without a doubt, she only stopped the fight because she thought a continuation would only anger Doffy. She served him, no one else. In his mind, the woman was just another puppet. If the fight had been the other way around, Vergo at Law's mercy, she would have stopped it just the same.

Letting out a short huff, Law moved his leg forward as he hobbled on his way back downstairs. His emotions were still seething, and so was his itch to tear something apart.

* * *

Law was sitting on the balcony facing the forest. He had taken the recent fancy of sitting in the white lounge chair by the railings whenever he had the time. Admittedly, that was more often than not. The air was getting warmer, less chilly than it had been in the past few weeks, and the sky was getting clearer. Cloudless blue skies were starting to become a norm, and it was a change to the bleak grey ceiling of the basement. The air, too, smelled refreshingly clean. Law told himself that it was the need for open space that brought him outside. He needed to be able to feel that he could stretch his legs without accidentally kicking a severed head. This was his time for relaxation, to catch up on his reading, and so what if it gave him the opportunity to gaze upon the hills? They were a part of the natural terrain of the island.

It was just a mere coincidence that his eyes fell upon the distant shore. The sparkling horizon of the sea glistened, his eyes hypnotized by the slight shifts of tide, only to be disturbed by the shuffling intruding his peripherals. Law's gaze shifted down to the grass below where a servant was raking leaves. A small pile of dead foliage was slowly building up beside the boy's feet as he shepherded more with the rake in his hands. Since it was just the beginning of Spring, there were very little the boy could collect, but it was a menial task that needed to be done often to upkeep the cleanliness of the villa.

The boy wore a dark brown jacket which was rolled up to the elbows and a thin orange scarf that almost matched the color of his hair. The bright cloth wrapped around the boy's neck like tight rope. The way it coiled so closely tempted Law to pull it apart. The urge built inside his core, and he didn't realize that he had been staring so raptly until the servant turned around to reveal his boyish face. Oblivious to the pair of eyes watching him, the boy leaned against the rake with his elbow as a prop and tugged at the front of his scarf. A pale finger hooked on the cloth exposing a column of skin.

The boy's chest rose as he inhaled cool air, and he wiped a drop of sweat dripping down his temple with the back of his wrist. Another intake of breath, and the boy was back to yard work.

Law's eyes kept on the servant. The boy was facing him now, and he could study the redhead's face. His features were older than… what he would have been happy to see. Law chastised himself for comparing the servant with someone else, but he couldn't help it. The servant was perhaps a little older than Law himself, and his jawline was starting to become more defined – sharper. Freckles littered along a slightly sharp nose and exploded into imperfect circles at the top of his cheeks.

There was something soft and welcoming about the boy's face, and Law almost pitied him for somehow getting himself to be captured by his family. His brows furrowed as he slowly recalled where he had seen the boy's face before. He could picture the boy's face below him with dank cinderblocks in the background. Fear stricken and skin smudged with dirt and blood from the ground, hazel eyes looked at him desperately in panic. Naked – bare thighs against a floor filled with organs that have spilled from multiple bodies before. Lips drained of color quivered in only a way a person who was backed into a corner would.

Law had gotten the message clearly. _Please don't kill me. _

Dilated pupils kept the image of Death in their aperture. It was what every single person witnessed when they were at the judgement of Law's hand. The pained expressions, the teary eyes, the shaking shoulders – Law had seen it every time, but somehow, when he saw that boy, he couldn't do it. _Too many similarities. _

Even when he reminded himself that Kid was probably dead, Vergo had gone after him like the thorough killer he was, he couldn't handle seeing the boy who looked so much like Kid die under his blade. He couldn't help but compare their faces and that Kid probably looked like the way the boy did when Vergo was about to deal the final blow. In his final moments, Kid was probably scared, his vitals high and blood overflowing with adrenaline as his body attempted to help him survive for the last time.

The servant finally noticed the creeping notion that he was being studied. Lean, muscular arms stopped moving and the boy looked up. Short, orange lashes fluttered as hazel eyes looked up and latched onto Law leaning against the balcony.

Kind eyes devoid of hate studied him. Memories of torture had been erased from the boy's mind so that he would be more compliant, but in a way, it was another illusion. It was a magic trick that they did to him in order to veil his pain. It was wrong. The amused look playing in those hazel eyes were _wrong_. A shy smile fit into the thin lips.

"Fu fu fu fu."

Law's heart began to race when he heard the laugh. His eyes rounded at being caught. The deeply amused chuckle trailed by his ear, and it was so painfully obvious that he had been so enthralled by his daydream that he had forgotten the person in the chair beside him.

Law was quick to pretend that he had been engrossed in the musty medical textbook in his hands instead. The opened textbook felt like dead weight in his palms as he brought it up high to bury his nose between the yellowed pages. His back hunched over in fake interest while his eyes fell in the middle of a paragraph. The words were black squiggles as he hurried to process what the book was saying.

"Don't try to hide it, pet. I know what you like."

The implication sent his ears slightly pink. He could try to deny it, but he was pretty sure that Doffy had always known. The lingering gazes on a certain gender had been a thing before they had come to South Blue. He's always have had an _inclination_ to a certain type, and his extra flickers toward prisoners with red hair didn't go unnoticed. It wasn't attraction that made him give a double take towards the prisoners though. The color just reminded him of a dead boy. It was almost unfair that he would have constant reminders.

The blonde man laughed again. This time, Law could see that Doffy had leaned forward, his chin resting on the heel of his palm as he grinned at his protégé. Long, lanky legs folded over the other in total smugness. Behind that perfect, white smile, he knew that Doffy had been planning something all along. He must've had a reason for allowing that boy to live and wiping his memory. This was the first time he didn't force Law to kill when he hesitated, and didn't trip a fuse for seeing such weakness in his family members. Instead, he just gave a quiet look at his protégé. The few seconds were tantalizing, and even more so was the command the blonde had shot at another servant in the basement with them. The nearby servant stiffened at the blonde's attention, but acted swiftly on their heels and dragged the redheaded boy away.

He didn't think that Doffy would make the boy a worker in the villa. The purpose of keeping the boy around dawned on him now, and it made him all sorts of uncomfortable and confused.

"Go out with him to the city," Doffy suggested. "There isn't nearly enough work for him to do inside the house."

Law shifted in his seat. "That isn't necessary."

"You haven't gone out for so long. It'll be refreshing to explore the city. You haven't done so yet ever since we came here. Enjoy yourself."

The man did give a valid point. His hands against the textured cover of his textbook loosened, and he set his book down on his lap.

"Doffy," he began, but didn't know how to continue. He peered at his mentor, and the man gave a teasing smile. His fingers dragged slow lines along the corner of his medical textbook.

"Unless you don't want him?"

The rising tone at the end left an open threat that he would dispose of the redhead then. He didn't really care of what happened to the boy, but that somehow disagreed with Law greatly. The teen looked down below to the redheaded boy once more who had resumed to focusing on the grass.

He didn't care. He knew he didn't care, so maybe it was guilt that made him frown when the oblivious daze in the boy's expression got to him again.

"Okay," he conceded. "Tomorrow."

Law didn't think it was possible, but Doflamingo's grin grew even wider.

* * *

When it came to money, Doflamingo was always generous. Law had his own black card and separate bank account that held millions of berries. The money, of course, came through illegal means, but no one ever cared for the fact. The family was well funded, and wasn't that what mattered?

Law and the redheaded servant exited another store after Law lazily gave the person at the register his card. The woman manning the desk had forced out a shaky smile after seeing the emblem on the card and blurted out a nervous thank you as a bell chimed to signify their leave.

Ignoring the stumbling goodbye, they merged back into the wide streets. As they walked, he shot brief glances at the signs hanging at the top of the shop doors. Usually, he was finicky with shopping since he always wanted the best so it was with practice that he eliminated many of the lower quality businesses. By now, he would have dismissed over half of the establishments, but since he wasn't going about in the main square of the city with a purpose, he let himself gravitate mindlessly to everything that caught his faintest interest. The whole ordeal barely made it as a slightly amusing activity, but he pushed himself to continue for at least another two hours. It wouldn't look well if he returned home too early.

He had to, as was said, _enjoy _himself.

Honestly, though, he didn't.

Doffy wants him to go out to the city, fine. That didn't mean that he had to like the excursion. The crowd of humans was making him claustrophobic, and talking to salesperson after salesperson was tiring. He'll just make it look like he amused himself for the smallest bit so that he wouldn't be bothered twice. And having the redhead following behind him to attend his every whim – well, he tried to ignore the boy's presence, if he wanted to say the truth. He didn't want to see his face. He didn't want to hear him speak either because he looked too much like Kid already, and hearing his voice would just – it would – Law cut the thought short inside his head because he didn't want to think about it.

They continued to walk in silence, and he appreciated that the redhead wasn't much of a talker. He was obedient and did whatever Law told him to. Currently, the boy had his hands full with bags and boxes of all the merchandise that Law bought. It was actually a lot so the dark haired teen slowed his pace to accommodate the heavy load. With bored eyes, Law looked around trying to find a familiar brand. Many stores lines both sides of the crowded streets, and he was debating on entering a shoe or book store next. His mind distracted, he gave a slight jolt when a hand pulled at his elbow to draw him aside.

His feet stumbled as his back bumped against the servant's chest. Boxes and bags fell to the floor as the redhead's arms dropped them in favor of wrapping his limbs around Law's waist.

He was about to ask why when the next thing Law knew, a group of kids ran past him. Their arms swung wildly showing no signs of stopping. With the speed that they were going, they would have crashed against Law before they could have stopped themselves.

Law's eyes watched them fly by. Tattered clothes and joyful faces rushed past him, childish laughter trailing behind. They would have been another group of ragtag kids if it weren't for the one person that made his heart freeze.

Flashy red hair bounced with each step and would have acted more wildly if it weren't for the goggle straps holding them down by the kid's hairline. A loose sleeveless tank pressed against the boy's thin body as he ran against the wind. In the brief second that their eyes met, time had never moved so slow.

Unlike the boys running ahead of him, the redhead wasn't smiling. When he turned around to give Law a glance, his lips were bent into a frown. Eyes slowly opening, a glint of annoyance filled the chocolate colored irises. Both their brows rose simultaneously as recognition hit them hard. The dark browns instantly melted into familiarity. Law could see every muscle on the boy's face as they eased from the rigid expression to the surprised revelation. The boy's mouth dropped into a gape. The boy's legs slowed. The moment his feet stopped completely was when time resumed into its normal pace.

The hands were ticking again.

Law remained frozen. He didn't know how to react. There was a little bubble inside his throat that wanted to say Kid's name, but it was stuck. He was too overcome with the fact that Kid was alive. He was _alive_ and standing in front of him. How was that possible? He just accepted the boy's death, but here he was ruining all of the trouble he had to go through to kill every single emotion that arose from the past few weeks. He was angry.

No. _No._

How could he be here?

Law matched Kid's dumbstruck expression. He was taking in the scratch along the boy's cheek that hadn't been there before. It wasn't fresh, the jagged line along his cheek a crusty brown. It had been healing, that much he could tell. More scratches appeared right above Kid's left brow, and his right hand was bandaged. The fingers from his right hand were all swollen and tinted yellow from an antiseptic. Law was focused on the dark purple bruise at the corner of the boy's lip when Kid moved to speak.

His heart began to race, a vice grip squeezing his chest as he anticipated what words Kid could possibly say. The bruised lips formed a circle, the first syllable hanging off his tongue, when Kid's head snapped as someone pulled the boy's hand.

"C'mon!" a different boy yelled breathlessly as they dragged Kid with them.

Kid let himself be pulled, his legs restarting like an engine, as he hurried to catch up with the rest of his pack. He gave a meaningful glance back at Law, his face contorting in regret as if wishing to say something, but couldn't.

Law watched him go, his chest squeezing painfully to the point of wanting to rip it out just so he didn't have to _feel_.

"Master Law, are you alright?" the boy holding him asked.

He couldn't bring himself to respond and stood dumbly bringing worry to the older redhead. The arm holding him slipped from his waist as the boy gently turned him around. Calloused hands rested against his shoulder and cheek as the boy inspected for any injuries.

"You didn't get hurt, did you?" They boy's voice hitched due to his lack of response.

Law blinked trying to push down the surprise and hurt down. Taking deep breaths, he made himself gradually reel back into the moment of what was. The thumb gently rubbing circles under his eye grabbed his attention and he flicked his gaze to the boy standing so close to him. A worried face held him intently trying to gauge his state of mind to figure out if something had happened to make him so quiet. Since the boy was taller than him, the redhead had his head bent, and Law could see how the orange lashes hugged the skin around oval eyes.

The hazel gaze hardened, fretting and overwhelmingly genuine.

Before Law could let himself fall into the tempting offer of comfort, he turned his head and pushed the boy away.

"I'm fine," he uttered under his breath.

He didn't give the boy a chance to say anything more as he went ahead down the street in quick strides.

* * *

Kid didn't know. When he had run off to bait the animal that had been chasing them that night, he had booked it without looking back. He was expecting for the animal to go after him in hopes of it leaving Law alone, but when he had gotten far enough, he noticed that there was nothing behind him. He stopped running and turned around only to find himself utterly alone. The silence of the night was filled with his harsh breathing accompanied with the exaggerated rise of his chest. His lungs were burning from the cold air, perspiration lining his forehead.

Puzzled as to why nothing was threatening to claw out his insides, Kid retraced his steps to try and find the beast. Every step he took increased his panic because what if the animal didn't see him run off? What if instead of protecting Law, his stupid antic had made him leave his friend behind to fend for himself against the beast? That specific scenario had him hurrying back to where he had left the older boy resting. His arms fought to push low branches aside as he made it back to the small mound where Law should have been.

When he arrived, the place was empty. Any trace of the older boy and their baby bird was nonexistent. It was as if they just disappeared.

Under the almost complete darkness of the forest, Kid could hardly see so he listened for any signs of life around him. His ears caught the buzz of nocturnal insects and the rustle of leaves.

"Trafalgar!" he yelled.

When he didn't get an answer, he called out again and again. He didn't care if the amount of noise he was making attracted another wild predator. His palms were starting to sweat from worry. Where could the boy have gone? Possibly not far with that injured leg of his. Kid circled around the area wondering if Law had gone to find a different hiding place, but ended up in the same spot he began only to feel more crestfallen.

He was cursing up a storm inside his head when he had sped off and started running to check every single spot in the forest to find his damned foreigner. Hours passed by and his legs were getting tired from running. There was a sharp pain inside his left shoe, and he was pretty sure that he was bleeding at his pinky toes. Still, he wouldn't let himself rest until he found who he was looking for.

Kid found himself walking through a bumpy path when the earth underneath him suddenly caved in. His eyes widened as his arms shot up to grab for safety, but he groped at what turned out to be nothing. His body fell down into the pit, his elbows scraping against the dirt walls. A rock hit the back of his head, and the next thing Kid knew, he was out cold.

When he awoke, bright light was falling over his lids. The intensity of the light prompted him to open his eyes. He did so slowly. Awareness slowly settled into his hazed mind, and so did the aches plaguing all over his body. The back of his head where he had been hit hurt the most, a slight throb beating against his skull.

Kid looked above him and saw a picture of the blue sky through the hole of a circle of dirt. He was quick to realize that he had fallen into a pit, a trap that some hunter had set up. He blinked again groggily and his eyes settled on the figure that had appeared at the edge of the hole from where he had fallen through. The blonde shaggy hair was a familiar sight. Another figure joined him, and it was a smaller, and more condescending entity that he didn't entirely like too much.

"Had a good night's rest?" Bonny asked from above, her arms crossed and looking not too pleased.

Kid answered with a groan. He could hardly move. There was something crusty along his right eye and cheek that might have been dried blood.

More figures gathered at the top of the pit, and soon, people were climbing down the hole with rope and hoisting Kid up back to normal ground again. The rest of the day was pretty much a blur. Heat threw him on his back because his foot was swelling and he couldn't walk. Even though he was out of it, he could tell that the trek back to ocean shore had been a long one. They were far from the shore, but It might have also been due to their slow pace. Heat was a big guy and was fast growing, but even he had his limits and couldn't carry a person for so long. He and Killer switched from carrying Kid every once in a while when one of them got tired. To make matters worse, most of the trip was constituted of treacherous up hills.

There were so many steep inclines that it got Kid to wonder how he didn't hurt himself more than he did when he was running around in the uneven terrain in the pitch of almost blindness.

The salty sea air hit him hard after almost two hours. The pungent seaweed stink rode in the cool breeze as their small band looked beyond to the shoddy, wooden shack sitting on top of the boulders overlooking the waters. The rest of the stray children that lived with them could be seen milling about the house. Someone was hanging up laundry along the two wires they stretched over four wooden posts in what they called as their backyard. The rest busied themselves with household chores. The kids who were outside greeted them casually when they reached their home.

Kid must've looked really dirty, even for them, because a few raised a brow after laying their eyes on him. He was thankful that Heat just trudged on and didn't stop until they entered the house and dropped Kid in his bed. He groaned once he landed. The lumps of his bed brushed up against all the wrong spots, but the whines were ignored as Killer asked for Heat to bring some supplies from the bathroom closet. The blue haired teen came back quickly with a medium sized container that they had thrown all their medical supplies in and gave it to the blonde.

Searching through the mess, Killer pulled out the alcohol and poured some in a clean cloth before scouring Kid's skin with it. The searing pain of the disinfectant promptly woke him up making him hiss, but the older boy would have none of it. He continued with his ministrations and cleaning the redhead's wounds. Once done, he proceeded to rub ointment on any open flesh and wrapped the bigger cuts in a bandage.

Killer chastised him the whole time, but luckily, Kid was too out of it to actually listen. The words went in one ear and out the other. When the blonde was finally done with him, he gave Killer a noncommittal grunt, but he did thank him. It was a hoarse gratitude that he forced out of his parched throat, but a thank you nonetheless. Killer must've known that he was thirsty because Heat had come back with a glass of water at the right moment when they finished.

Sometimes, he thought that Killer was psychic. The boy always surprised him on how far he always thought ahead.

Kid gratefully received the glass and gulped it all down, then handed the cup back to Heat.

"Get some sleep," Killer told him.

A protest was about to start from his lips, but a heaviness that he'd been fighting for a while overtook him. He swore he only allowed for his lids to close once. A hand was pushing Kid back to lie down. He couldn't fight it so he let himself be pushed. The back of his head fell into the familiar mold of his pillow. It wasn't the most comfortable, but his body recognized the feel of his bed and his muscles relaxed. Everything still hurt, but he couldn't deny that it was good to be _home_. Every bone in body just ached and it craved rest. Before he realized it, he fell asleep.

Kid must've been really tired because he slept for a day after that. He sustained minor injuries, but he was functional. When he woke for the second time, the first thing he did was slip back into his worn boots to start making his way back to the forest. He tossed the musty sheets covering his body and jumped out of bed. The flutter of the sheets blew the smell of antiseptic to his nose, and he huffed at the nauseating smell. His body was covered in the disinfectant so he couldn't even cover his nose with his own hand, and speaking of, his right hand felt very swollen and looked all the way bloated. His fingers were pudgy under the bandages around his hand, and his fingertips looked to be tainted a dark yellow from the disinfecting liquid.

Kid ignored his injuries for now as his mind was still screaming at him in worry. He hadn't meant to sleep for so long. His body just couldn't continue, but now he felt like scum for even taking a wink of rest. He shouldn't have stopped searching because he needed to know, more than anything, if Law was okay. The wooden floorboards creaked under his weight as he walked by the rusty bunkbeds of his housemates. He stepped out of the bedroom and into the dark hallway. Since the candles weren't lit, he assumed it wasn't evening yet.

There were no windows in the bedroom or in the halls so he couldn't tell if the sun was still out, but the time didn't matter. He was heading out either way.

"Where are you going?"

Killer had caught him at the door just as he was leaving. Kid turned around to face his friend, and the older boy was not happy. He had a stern expression etched on his face that said that he wasn't going to tolerate Kid's nonsense.

"I need to go back," he answered in a way that said that he wasn't going to be stopped. He was going whether Killer liked it or not.

The blonde recognized the stubborn fire in his eyes, and the fatigue sunk into his face making him look even older. "Why?" he asked instead of directly chastising the younger boy.

He noticed Kid's knuckles turning white as he gripped the door knob so tightly that it was a legitimate concern that the metal would actually get ripped from their aged wooden door. It was already a useless enough piece of wood. With the amount of chips on it, it was already falling apart and was barely attached to the hinges anymore. They didn't need it to be unable to lock as well. Killer tried to make his anger leave so it wouldn't rub off and hopefully get the redhead to calm down as well. Being rash would help no one.

The tactic worked because Kid stopped trying to pulverize the doorknob. His eyes pierced through the floor beneath his feet as his brows furrowed.

"I need to find someone," he answered frankly. "I need to know if they're okay."

"In the forest?" Killer wanted to make sure he understood.

"Yeah."

"Kid," the blonde was torn on whether or not he should put a comforting hand on him or not. His hand lifted in debate, but returned back to his side when he thought better of it. "Is it that foreigner you've talking about?"

Killer got his answer from Kid's stiff upper lip.

"If it is," he continued, "It's been a day. The forest isn't safe – not for people who aren't from here. They wouldn't know how to take care of themselves with all the wild animals living there. There isn't any worth if you look for him now."

There was a cringe inducing crack as Kid did tear out the doorknob. There was a big gaping hole left on the door as Kid threw the rusty metal to the floor. He didn't want to hear it. _Law's dead. _He didn't want to admit it, although it was probably true. He couldn't find him last night even though he had been searching tirelessly for hours.

The logical part of his brain was telling him that he should give up. If he continued hoping for the slim chance that the dark haired teen was alive, he'd never find it. He had probably already been swallowed up by an island predator. Or worse, he would find Law's body – dead, mutilated.

Kid pressed the heel of his palm against his eyes to erase the grotesque image. He didn't want to think about it. He wanted to hope for the impossible.

At this very moment, Kid _hated _himself. He truly wanted to throw himself into the sea to drown because it had been all his fault. Law was urging him to leave when it had gotten late, but like the stubborn brat he was, he laughed off the boy's fear. Kid knew that he could take care of himself here. He was born and raised near the forest so he had no problems feeling comfortable staying past midnight, but he should've taken into consideration that Law was different. He should have used his head to put two and two together that everything was new to other boy. Kid didn't know what Law's home country was like, but it was no doubt nothing like the savage of South Blue.

Everything in the island ran by the concept of, "the strong eat the weak."

Damn it! Why couldn't he have understood that maybe Law had actually been scared? Shit. And he made fun of him for it too. He was such a _dumbass. _A stupid _moron_. Law had been right about everything. It was late and there were predators, and shit, shit, shit –

Kid swung the door open and ran. He just ran and ran and didn't know where he was going. His head was still fuzzy and hadn't made the decision if he wanted to continue his search, but he just wanted Law to be safe. He wanted to see him, _wanted him to magically appear to assure that everything was fine _and he hadn't messed everything up.

Sniffling, Kid didn't take in how far he had gone until he tripped on a root and landed square on his face. Dirt caked his face as he slid through blades of grass. Annoyed and frustrated, Kid flipped himself over to yell at the sky, but stopped when he recognized the tree that he was under. The scream died in his throat as the image of the heavy set branches towered above him like the spread fingers of a hand. It was something about the quiet of everything around him, in addition to the strong presence of the tree, that made him keep still.

His brown eyes stayed fixed on the gently swaying leaves. The way it moved made him feel serene and dried the threatening mist building at the corner of his eyes. Kid wiped the snot under his nose with the back of his dirt smeared forearm. It took a while, but he eventually calmed and fixed himself in a sitting position with his legs crossed. Thinking about nothing, he stared at the quickly moving clouds under the shade of the tree, of _their tree_, and leaned against the trunk. He tried not to make much from the fact that he was sitting in the spot Law had often sat in. The two thickest roots of the tree cased him on either side like a throne beside his thighs.

_Huh_, he thought then as he had never bothered to settle himself in Law's spot before. _He's such a prince_.

Kid didn't roll his eyes, but he was smirking internally because deep down in his gut, he knew the dark eyed boy was still alive and he could make fun of him later for being such snoot.

He chuckled a bit as he thought of scenarios of them meeting again. He thought about what he would say if they did. _Sorry for leaving you_, didn't quite cut it. Nor did insulting him sounded like a good enough pave way to start a conversation. He didn't think he'd be able to admit that he'd been worried either. _You worried me_, sounded too attached. Although, why should he worry about that? It seemed like he was pretty much attached now. Shit. No. Law would get freaked out if he knew.

Huffing, Kid plucked a blade of grass and tossed it in the air. He'd be surprised if Law didn't already know. The guy was smart. He must've already figured it out. Or maybe not. Heck, Kid was just figuring it out himself just at this moment that he liked Law more than he realized. Not that there was anything to dislike about him. Law was witty and fun to be around. Plus, he was just so different from everyone that he knew. The attitude and feel that the older boy gave him was just so fresh, and it was nice getting a taste of what was outside of South Blue.

Law would often tell him stories of his country whenever they talked. Words would flow from his mouth like smooth silk, and from them, he would create these beautiful, descriptive images of a place called Dressrosa. He would become enamored by these tales. The boy's tongue would become Kid's eyes, his ears, his hands, and he would even taste the food that the older teen had savored years before. Kid could even close his eyes now and see the falling rose petals and hear the boisterous music of a festival that had been described to him before. Clowns on high stilts leaping over crowds and energetic entertainers in colorful costume and masks filled his head.

Law was such a good orator that he never got tired of listening to him. Once, he thinks, the older boy got him to exclaim that he would drag Law to sea with him on a pirate ship so they could explore the different countries out there. He wanted to be a part of Law's stories. They could have done it as stowaways, and eventually, they would have taken over the ship.

A complete crew needed a doctor, didn't it?

It was so difficult to get the older boy to promise him that he wouldn't let Kid get scurvy. In the end, he still hasn't managed to get Law to say the exact words of a promise, and maybe that's what kept him going and coming to their tree every single day since. _The Kid Pirates need a doctor. I need a doctor._

He didn't even notice the weeks going by until he sneezed from all the pollen in the air, the sweet scent of Spring surrounding him, as a hand squeezed his shoulder. Kid craned his neck from where he was sitting on the tree's roots. Killer was giving him a stoic look as the blonde stood next to him. The dark blue thermal he had been wearing since winter was now replaced by a light blue t-shirt hugging his friend's tanned frame.

"What?" he asked rubbing his ruby tipped nose.

"Some of the kids that had gone missing two months ago have turned up. We found two of them at the local markets in the city. Eddie swears that he knew the two girls, but they were pretty adamant in telling him off and calling the police. Ed's sitting out and icing his black eye, but the rest of us are going to head into city to check things out. You coming?"

Kid stared at his friend for a while. The words, "two months ago," had him reeling in the realization that almost a month had passed since he started waiting by the tree. After that, revelation after revelation just started to hit him. For instance: one, Law still hadn't showed, and two, the case of mysteriously disappearing children from the streets that they've been investigating since the beginning of the year was still happening. While he had been stuck in time, the rest of the world was still continuing without him.

It was disconcerting how he had just been gone from everyone, and it made him feel even more alone.

He braced himself against the dark roots of the tree on either side of him to help him stand up. Maybe he needed to move on too.

"Yeah," he said as he dusted the back of his pants. "Let's go."

_Let's go_.

Just as he's about to move on, the world doesn't let him. Kid goes to the city with five others: Killer, Eddie, Wire, Wesley, Nick, and Nikolai. Those were the guys he hung out with the most, and it sent him feeling better to get back into the old, nostalgic, no-good schemes with his click. Despite the adamant advice of Killer for Ed to sit out, the dark haired boy insisted on tagging along, and Kid was glad for it because their group wouldn't be complete and the boy never failed to lighten everyone's mood.

As they travel to the city market, Kid listens to their bickering. The twins, Wesley and Nikolai, are making fun of Eddie for his amazing shiner, and Ed's throwing back unsparing remarks about their gangly frame. The twins are self-conscious about their thin bodies, almost skeleton like due to malnutrition, and Wire smacks Eddie on the back of the head when he thinks he goes too far.

It's almost too easy, too natural, to fall into step with these guys. They're quick to attract the attention of the city police when they go about snooping for the two girls' whereabouts, and one of the merchants by the stands alerts the city guards. They're called deviants, miscreants of the city, and are soon chased by a group of police officers for loitering and causing a public disturbance.

The adrenaline rushes in Kid's head when he's blitzing through the crowded streets. People are shouting and jumping when they push by the middle class citizens who are strolling about in the city. Some are even offended and shake their fists at them as they run past laughing their lungs out. As street kids, they know how to navigate fluently through a thick crowd and have memorized the fastest street routes by heart. Their feet, quick to disappear against the concrete, make it look like they're gliding. Kid's boots are chaffing against the sides of his feet, but he doesn't care. He continues running, and after what felt like an eternity, he's elated. The gloomy cloud that had been following him around clears, and now, he feels animated. The danger of getting caught makes him feel alive, and he even laughs when they make it from the food markets to the main stores where there is a heavier crowd of people, and Nick brushes by a person so closely that the person behind the stranger has to pull the poor sap away.

The bags that the taller stranger had been carrying drop to ground. The bitter satisfaction of those nice things in the bags getting ruined brings a nasty joy to flutter warmly inside his chest.

Kid follows Nick's lead and runs by the two strangers to see their offended faces, but it doesn't go well. The redheaded stranger carrying the other person is someone Kid doesn't recognize, but the other one – the one with the pale face and terrified eyes as if they've seen a ghost – Kid recognizes. He looked a little thinner. His chin is sharper and the bags under his eyes have gotten more severe, but it was the same face. The fun that he's been having dies like a cold flame. The gears in his head slow, and so do his legs. As if they've run out of oil, his legs come to a complete stop.

His mouth opens and gapes as if he wants to say something. _Anything_.

Didn't he spend days thinking about what he would say at this moment?

It couldn't just be, _"You," _could it? Nor the repetition of the other boy's name, or simply the obvious fact, _"You're alive."_ No, those three weren't it, but they were the only ones popping up in his brain.

Kid didn't know whether to be happy, relieved, sad, angry for not being told, or just plain livid. He was glad that Law was alive. Although, he didn't know if the boy was well since the older teen looked to be horribly sleep deprived, but he sure as hell looked dandy in the shopping area while Kid spent his hours in seclusion under a damn tree. His eyes flicked to the arm wrapped around Law's waist and traced it to the face right besides Law's. A displeased teen held the dark haired Northerner, and the show of protectiveness irked him. _Irked him a lot._

Kid would have scowled if he had time. Who was that other redhead, and why the hell was he glaring at Kid like he was a nuisance? Yeah, he got that he and his friends were causing trouble right now, but this was different. He knew Law. Law didn't need any protection from _him_.

"C'mon! Why ya' slowing down, short stuff?" someone snatched his wrist as they ran past him.

Kid felt the jerk and restarted his legs to keep up with the breathless boy pulling him. He glared at Nikolai and his long, lanky legs.

"I'm not short!" he barked.

Just because he was the youngest in their group and still hadn't yet grown didn't mean he was short.

The ash haired boy chuckled in between breaths. "Just keep up then."

* * *

"I've brought you a drink."

Law was sitting in the garden behind the villa. He didn't want to see anyone, his mind still reeling from earlier events. Just seeing Kid's face, it was making his head spin. It made him want to go back to the forest to their usual spot and wait for the brat because now, there was a possibility that Kid _could _be there. The redhead was fine and kicking, and the frustration gnawing at every fiber of his being because he hadn't cared to look, to _see_, if the boy had been alive had grown to be ten times worse than before. He had just assumed that Kid was dead. He hadn't even taken into account that Kid was tougher than he thought and that maybe he would be able to escape.

Did Vergo even know that Law had someone with him that night? He couldn't have _not _seen that there was someone running alongside him. Then again, it had been very dark in the forest. If Vergo didn't know of Kid's presence, then did he ever give chase to Kid at all? Had Kid ever been in danger at all after he had ran off to sacrifice himself to protect Law?

The thought sent his head throbbing. He didn't want to think about the what if's. Re-analyzing the event of that night was making him want to lash out, and he didn't want to feel that way. He had done well in drowning out all these ugly emotions. He had thought he had killed all of them, so why did they come back? His mind was a mess, and his hands were gripping the side of his head as if he wanted to surgically remove his brain out so he could rid himself of the chaos.

Eyes closed, he drew his legs closer to his chest. He buried his face in his arms wanting to forget that he had seen Kid today. The encounter was tearing him apart.

Under an oak tree, the swinging bench that he was sitting on creaked as a weight added to it. Law was intent on ignoring the new presence by his side, but after waiting a while, it still didn't go away.

"You know, the people in the kitchen would be upset with me if I bring back a full pitcher. They'd say it was a waste that they even made the drink in the first place."

Law could feel the pair of eyes looking at him, and he picked his head up slightly. The redheaded servant that attended him the whole day was leaning at the back of the bench as he stood behind the swing. A subtle smile was on his lips while a silver plate was set next to Law. A tall pitcher of iced tea and a glass cup stood on the plate, perspiration thick and dripping against the surface of the jug.

The two of them stared at each other, neither of them taking the preemptive action to break the silence.

Law took the time to study the redhead's face. For the first time, he really looked at it. His eyes trailed down the straight line of the boy's nose, the slim curve of his face and square jaw, and how the short cut of his hair outlined his scalp. He could admit that he had some attractive features. Other than the light marks that had been inflicted against him, the boy's skin was even with the slight discoloration of freckles every here and there. A thin scar cut through the boy's right eye from a close call of a whip. Since he was wearing a white, short sleeved shirt, the scars along both forearms were exposed. They were the lasting marks from stitches that were needed to close several injuries that the boy had acquired through torture.

As the redhead rested his limbs against the seat of the bench, fingers crossed together laxly, he leaned in a little closer to Law.

"You don't want me to get yelled at, do you?" he inquired playfully.

To see the innocent eyes so close was such a shame. Law furrowed his brows in an attempt to drive the boy away.

"If you don't want to get yelled at, then throw the tea away in the bushes before you go back, or drink it yourself. I don't care what you do."

Instead of drawing back like Law expected him to, the boy laughed lightly.

"I know I'm not supposed to say this to you or I might get in trouble, but I don't like it when you pout like that."

"You're right. You aren't supposed to speak that way to me," Law bit scathingly.

This time, the boy did waver. Law raised his head triumphantly when the boy turned away to look at the distance and sighed.

"I don't know what's making you sad, but I'm betting it has to do with when we went to the city. You weren't acting like this in the morning."

"If you don't want to serve me, then leave."

"I'm not trying to offend you," the boy tried to placate.

"You're doing a poor job of it."

There was a heavy sigh, and the boy straightened up in defeat. Maybe this time, the redhead would take his drinks and leave. The hope of that was crushed when the boy rose his arms in a stretch.

"I don't know why, but I remember living with a bunch of performers," he grunted in between his bones cracking. "It must have been years ago that I was one of them. I'm almost a hundred percent sure that I was."

Although the boy was convinced of the fact, uncertainty was written all over his face. Law had no doubt he was talking about a remnant of the boy's life before he had been captured. Having memories of a different life compared to what he was doing now as a servant to some rich family certainly would confuse the boy. From what he knew of the memory altering process, the method was far from perfect and would have left a gap in the patient's memory. Their timeline would be whacked, but most of the time, the victims just accepted that there they had being doing one thing in the past and were doing something different now. They might question it for a moment, but the theoretical wall inserted into their brain would prevent the victim from dwelling on the subject for too long.

In the boy's case, he probably had been captured from the streets. As a freelance performer, it was very likely that his band of people had been sleeping in a public place when slave traders raided their little group, tents and all. The lean muscle the redhead sported now made sense. The boy was still young, but defined bumps and ridges was evident through the white cotton he wore, especially when the shirt rode up to reveal his stomach.

"I juggled fire. Did the whole tidbit with spitting it out and everything," he threw Law a boyish smile. "Although, sometimes, I remember myself entertaining young ladies. I've been trained to pick out the ones in a crowd that need the most cheering up. The happier the reaction I got, the better I looked, was what my mentor told me. I guess it's true. I've seen it work every time. When a lady laughs so loudly, the audience turns to immediately love me. They it eat up like I'm some sort of charming. I'm really not, though.

I wouldn't know how to talk to a lady even if they did all the talking. I liked the feeling though – of making them smile, I mean."

The redhead moved so quickly around the bench that Law just saw him kneeling on the ground in front of him. His eyes narrowed even further at the implication. It was such a flamboyant move, certainly deserving of a performance. Law shuffled back so that he was pressed into the back of the bench. The boy's arms were folded in the small sliver of space on the bench in front of Law's leather shoes while the redhead gazed at him.

"I'm not calling you a girl or anything," he continued. "I'm just trying to say that from what I've experienced, a lot of the girls that I picked out from the crowd would often ask me to eat with them after the show. I would have a small chat with them, and more than the initial dance, they seemed a lot happier from the talk that I had with them. I think – I think that people don't necessarily need someone to help them with whatever's troubling them, but they just need someone there to listen.

I won't force you to talk, but is it alright if I just sit next to you? I really don't want you to push me away."

They looked at each other, the boy waiting for Law's response. Law couldn't bring himself to say no after that earnest plea, and the boy looked like he wasn't going to go away until he got what he wanted. He shifted his gaze to the blades of grass besides the boy's feet.

"Do as you please," he grunted giving up.

The boy immediately shot up and twisted at the ball of his feet. Just like his previous movements, the twirl was flashy. In one smooth motion, the boy pushed the silver platter aside to the other side of the bench so he could take its place and sat down. The swing gave a little bounce as the boy plopped next to him.

"Thank you," he said.

Law pointedly ignored him and remained looking into the distance. He resumed to the hunched crouch that he had been in before the boy had come and hugged his knees. The rest of the time was filled with silence as Law didn't bother to speak. The servant could do whatever he wanted, but he would leave sooner or later when he realized that nothing was going happen. He wasn't going to pour his problems to the idiot, no matter how much the boy would ask. He couldn't. Not much could be done anyway with his problem. When you find that the person you had thought was dead was actually alive, there wasn't a solution to be made because it actually wasn't a problem.

In his case, it shouldn't be a problem. He should be happy, but it was as if there was this unspoken requirement that he should do something about finding Kid being alive, but he didn't know what. What _would _a person do after that realization? Did he _have _to do something about that newly attained piece of knowledge? Did it _have _to change anything? Law didn't know.

After a while of trying to find an answer, his mind dulled and he was soon just staring blankly at the far away hills. His eyelids drooped in lethargy. Not having moved for so long, his body began to feel heavy, but the hurt and confusion that he had been dealing with lingered. The turbulent feelings stayed inside his chest wreaking havoc. Tired, Law let his head droop to the side, and he felt a hand snake through his hair and cup the side of his head. The hand was warm and pulled him closer to a body of heat that felt comforting when he was at a loss at everything.

He gave in to the welcoming heat and allowed the hand to press his head further to lean against a shoulder. Involuntarily, a weary breath left his lips and maybe, he thought, that he should just leave everything as it was. He didn't _have _to do anything about Kid being alive. They were both fine before they met each other. It shouldn't be different if they didn't meet again. Their lives were too different. Kid would never have a place with the Don Quixote family, and Law would never fit in with the rough group that Kid lived with.

It was fun for a while when they had something in common. Now that their Flycatcher was dead though, there was no reason to ever associate with the boy anymore. Shouldn't it be fine like this, too?

The more Law stayed on that idea, the tighter his brows drew together, his mouth bending obtusely.

Concentrated in thought, it took a while for him to register the moist pressure against his forehead. When he did, the tension in his face fell, and his brows jumped high to his scalp. His head jerked upwards to look at the boy leaning close to him, his eyes blinking in stunned bewilderment.

The servant pulled away slightly the same time he moved, and there was a light blush filling his cheeks. His pale complexion made the flush that much more noticeable, the blooming pink growing and hiding his freckles. There was a slight worry etched on his face as if the boy hadn't meant to kiss him on his forehead. The hand in Law's hair recoiled and rushed to gripping the back of the bench just so it would be touching the younger boy directly.

"Sorry," the redhead started. "I, uhm, I just saw your face and I couldn't help it. I didn't know what I was doing, but you just looked so miserable. I had to do something. Sorry. I wasn't – I didn't…"

The boy stuttered nervously and looked down at his hands guiltily.

Law watched him fidget as his heart raced in a rhythm that had him at the edge of his seat. It was a slow type of rhythm, but every single beat was powerful and sent a slow burn in his chest. He had never felt the sensation before, but he felt nervous on top of anticipating for something else to happen. His hand touched the spot that had been kissed, and found that he actually liked the feeling when the boy's lips were against him.

He remained quiet, not even attempting to calm down the redhead who looked like he was going to lose it if Law didn't say anything soon. He reached over the older boy and tugged on his shirt to get his scattered attention. The mutterings stopped when the boy looked at him and awaited the reprimand, the threat, or whatever spiteful thing that was going to spew from his mouth. When the words finally came out, the impact sent the older boy a little dumbstruck. He stared at Law unsure, but Law just tilted his head in earnest.

"I liked it." _When you kissed me_, wasn't said. "Do it again."

The older boy bit his lower lip. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," he answered without hesitation.

The boy still didn't move. For a moment, Law thought that the servant was going to refuse, but the next second, the boy was leaning in. The hand returned to the back of his head, fingers raking through his dark hair, as the soft lips pressed to the middle of his forehead.

Law's eyes closed as he focused on the feeling of the touch. His nose buried into the boy's neck as they drew close, and he could smell the soap that was used to wash the boy's clothes. The fresh scent of clean linen mingled between them.

It was all too quick when the boy pulled back, and Law opened his eyes to look at the boy. Hazel eyes were staring back at him, hesitation still filling the light irises. They stayed liked that, their faces inches apart and looking into each other's eyes as both of them were too afraid to move and unsure what to do next. Law's heart was throbbing even louder, and he was afraid that his heart would jump out of his throat.

The redhead's spare hand touched Law's chin and tilted his head up. Hot puffs of breath blew at his face as the boy leaned in again, and this time, their lips connected in chaste meeting. The pink flesh against his own was slightly chapped, but Law was filing the sensation of their joined lips into the deepest parts of his brain. The kiss only lasted for a short moment, too short, but satisfying in an odd way that twisted his stomach in knots.

A thumb swiped the bottom of his lip urging the younger teen to open his eyes. When Law did, the older boy was gnawing at his lower lip again.

"How old are you?" he asked nervously.

"Fourteen," Law answered.

A relived sigh escaped the redhead as he hung his head. "That's good," he exhaled. "I thought you might have been younger."

"Why?" Law asked confused why the boy was so reluctant.

The older teen slowly lifted his head up to peer at Law. The pink had never left his complexion. "Because I'm fifteen." He was looking away again, his mind mulling over how to carefully phrase what he wanted to say. "Have you ever kissed anyone before?"

The question sent Law's muscles to stiffen. No. He had never kissed anyone before. He had always been distracted with his studies to do such a thing. His mind was always somewhere other than building relationships with other people. He's maybe perhaps had a thing with another boy in Dressrosa, but that was barely anything. It was just playful glances and teasing, but never anything more.

Noticing the how the younger boy had clammed up, the boy hastily continued.

"I wanted to know because if you don't want to…"

Law let the drumming in his chest win over.

"I want to," he said interrupting whatever pretenses that was making the boy pull back.

Maybe too eagerly, he clung onto the fabric of the redhead's shirt and pulled him towards him. Lest the older teen started to mull over his doubts, Law took the dive to initiate the next kiss. He shifted in his seat readjusting his legs so that he could twist to face the other boy better. Clumsily, he pressed their faces together, their noses hitting.

He could feel the redhead smile at his enthusiasm, but it was obvious that he had no idea what he was doing. The hand at the back of his head pressed more harshly at his scalp as the redhead took the lead and deepened their kiss. The other hand guided Law's right arm to wrap around the boy's neck, and getting the gist, he made his left arm follow so that he was cling on to the redhead's shoulders.

The boy opened his mouth sucking on Law's lower lip making the younger boy gasp. His fingers dug into the redhead's collar as the older teen angled their heads and continued sucking. Priding himself as a fast learner, Law mimicked the boy's ministrations and soon got lost in just trying to feel good.

The ache is his chest was starting to feel enjoyable, and maybe, just maybe, this was much better than the worry he had been drowning in before. This feeling didn't hurt. The hand rubbing at the back of his head and the other drawing small circles at his waist was something that he could throw himself in, and it made him forget what he didn't want to face. There was no Kid, no Vergo, no Doffy that he had to worry about. It was just him and the boy that's doing everything to just make him smile.

It was just roaming hands and hungry lips tasting each other.

* * *

"Where are you going?!" Nikolai was screaming after him.

Kid was running as if this were his last chance. He gave a glance back to the boy's gawking at him as if he was crazy.

"To the city!"

He increased his speed determined to finally find Law now that he knew he was alive.


End file.
